Our Own Last Chance
by WishUponADragon
Summary: The rebellion went wrong. Very wrong. But that's okay. I have a plan. The 76th Hunger Games are right around the corner, and everything is on the line.
1. The Reaping

Disclaimer: I don't own anything from the Hunger Games or Marvel

Loki looked through the massive crowd of people gathered at the Reaping, trying to see his brother in the 18 year old section. He knew Thor would try to volunteer this year, since it was the last year he would be able to. He was more nervous than he had ever been before at the Reapings with the knowledge that his brother may achieve this goal.

"And now, ladies and gentlemen of District 1, it is time to select the lucky tributes!" The escort finally ended her tedious monologue, and the people in the crowd in front of her snapped to attention, instantly ready for the rush to volunteer. "As always, ladies first, but this year we have a rather unusual tribute. No volunteering, I'm afraid."

The excitement level dropped instantly, with several boos and cries of "No fair!"

The Capitol woman raised a hand to silence the unruly district. "The boys may still volunteer, but the female tribute this year has already been selected." There was a moment of hesitation before her plastered-on smile took over her face once more, and she waved to her right. "May I introduce... the Capitol's very own Victory Snow!"

A gasp ran through the crowd as Victory stepped onstage. The president's granddaughter held her head high and kept her face impassive, ignoring the glares from the girls of District 1. She stared straight ahead, determined not to acknowledge any of them. Loki wondered briefly how she had ended up on that stage, but was quickly distracted by the escort in her sickly green outfit moving to the other side of the stage.

"And now for the boys..."

She dipped her hand into the bowl of names, but didn't even get to touch one before shouts of "I volunteer!" rang out. They fought to get onstage, and Loki felt his breath catch in his throat as he realized his brother was going to get there first. He couldn't do anything except watch as Thor got on the stage and the other 18 year olds drew back.

"I am Thor Odinson," he announced. The escort greeted him warmly, and gestured that the two tributes should shake hands. They did, Victory not changing her emotionless expression, even when confronted with Thor's unnervingly tight grip and overconfident grin.

"District 1's tributes, Victory Snow and Thor Odinson!" the woman exclaimed before they were led towards the Justice building. They hadn't gone far before someone ran onstage and whispered something to the woman, who almost instantly turned a deathly shade of white that clashed horribly with her ridiculous outfit.

"Very sorry, one more thing, if I may have your attention." She didn't have to ask, the moment she spoke everyone froze. "It seems that one of the tributes from District 12 is currently living here. Such a strange mix-up, but as he was originally from Distr-"

As soon as she indicated that the tribute was a male, the boys rushed to volunteer again. A chill went down Loki's spine when he heard District 12. _It can't be..._

"No! No, there will not be any volunteering. This is a District 12 matter, this young man was adopted into District 1. As there were no volunteers, the male tribute for District 12 is Loki Odinson."

For the second time that day, a gasp ran through the crowd as they recognized his last name. Loki stood frozen to the spot, unable to move or even breath. All eyes slowly picked him out of the crowd. Seemingly far away, a woman screamed and Loki dimly registered that it was their mother. The sound of her arguing with the Peacekeepers that they couldn't take both of them became background noise to the blood rushing in his ears as he walked slowly onto the stage.

The escort looked between the two boys.

"You wouldn't happen to be siblings, would you?" she asked, entirely unsure of how to handle a situation like the one she had been given. When they nodded, both seemingly robbed of the capacity to speak, she responded in the manner a Capitol person would be expected to. "How delightful! For the first time ever we'll have brothers in the arena! This will certainly be a year to remember!" Loki felt a sudden urge to strangle her.

He found that he couldn't meet Thor's eyes, so instead he looked at Victory. Her emotionless mask slipped momentarily as she bit her lower lip in frustration, before her blue eyes closed quickly. With a small shake of her head she was once again the uncaring golden girl of the Capitol.

Without being prompted to do so, she whirled around and stalked into the Justice Building.

For lack of another idea, Loki followed, knowing Thor would be right behind him. The escort and Peacekeepers quickly took over and guided them to separate rooms to wait for their families.

Loki had no way to keep track, but he knew that a lot of time passed without his door opening.

After a while he heard muffled voices outside. He crept to the door and pressed his ear to it, careful not to cause it to creak.

"Not in the holding area! I thought I told you to keep an eye on her!"

"I was, sir! She didn't come out the door."

"That's ridiculous. What did she do then, fly?"

The voices were quite for a moment. "There are some that call her the new mockingjay-"

A sharp percussive sound rang clearly through the door. Loki could almost see the junior officer rubbing his face where he'd been slapped.

When the voices resumed, they were quieter, and Loki strained to catch the words. "No. Mockingjay is dead and will stay that way. We are talking about the president's daughter, and you will find her or it will be both our heads. Besides, it's a symbol, not an actual bird."

A tap on the window drew him away from the door. Black hair hung from an upside down figure, waving and grinning. Loki pushed the window up and Victory swung inside. She put a finger to her lips, and Loki repeated the gesture. She smiled in response and slipped out of the door into the hallway.

A second later "PEEKABOO LOSERS!" came from several yards down the hall, accompanied by yelling and general chaos. A Peacekeeper soon marched angrily into Loki's room and led him to a train, where Thor, the District 1 mentors, and the escort were waiting. A moment later Victory joined them, accompanied by a squad of Peacekeepers and the smuggest grin Loki had ever seen.

Loki thought the escort would crush Victory's ribs with the hug she gave her. "Oh, darling, we were so worried, we thought something horrible had happened-"

"Guinevere, let go of me," Victory ordered sharply, pulling away from the hyperactive woman, her mood deflating instantly upon contact with the glittery Capitol woman.

_So that's her name,_ Loki noted with indifference.

"I'm perfectly fine, but honestly, I'm surprised that _you_ care. Something horrible's already happened, but I guess none of us can do anything about that, now can we?" Victory brushed past Guinevere with the emotionless expression she'd adopted onstage. Loki got on the train with her, leaving the shocked woman behind on the platform to stutter to the cameras.

"What was that about?" he quietly asked Victory as she walked quickly down the narrow passageway of the train.

"It's nothing." She brushed off his question as coldly as she had brushed off Guinevere. "Shouldn't you be discussing survival plans with your mentor?"

"I can't, I'm supposed to be District 12, right? Haymitch isn't here." Loki stepped in front of her, stopping the angry girl's progress down the train. "Do you even know where you're going?"

"Somewhere." She moved to step around him, but he shifted to block her again.

"Where's somewhere?"

"Everywhere's somewhere, therefore anywhere's somewhere, and why does it matter to you?" Her voice steadily increased in volume until she was shouting, but the words sounded forced.

"It doesn't."

"Good. Leave me alone." She brushed past him and kept walking. The train shuddered to life, and he had to put a hand out to the wall to steady himself. Not having anywhere else to go, Loki began walking in the direction Victory had gone. He found her at the back of the train, curled up on a large, comfortable looking couch in front of a TV.

Sitting beside her, he turned his attention to the latest news on the single channel Panem had. Thus far, the latest news appeared to be them. The tributes from and for District 1 were being discussed by everyone from Caesar Flickerman to the Hunger Games commentators. None of the short shows were very interesting until Victory's grandfather appeared on the screen.

She turned the volume up, obviously eager to hear his explanation of her participation in the Games. Thor found them thankfully before Guinevere did and quietly sat by Loki to watch.

Onscreen, Snow calmly spoke to all of Panem with the same emotionless face his granddaughter had mastered. "I am here to address an issue that has been the cause of a lot of trouble over the past year. There has been some dissent in recent times of how I run my country, of how cruel the entire concept this government is founded upon is, and this year, I give you proof that the Games are not only necessary, they are a _honor_. This year, my granddaughter, Victory Snow, will be a tribute in the Hunger Games. She is a willing participant, and when she becomes the Victor, I hope it will serve as a reminder to us all that the might of the Capitol can not be overcome. May the odds be ever in your favor, Victory."

The TV switched back to replaying the Reaping from District 1, and Victory turned the TV off angrily. "This is sick," she muttered.

Thor looked at her, confusion shining in his electric blue eyes. "But, you're from the Capitol, don't you like the Games?"

Victory shook her head, sending her black curls dancing behind her. "No, but I'm one of very few. 'Willing participant' must not have the same definition I thought it did. Granddaddy lied about why I'm _really_ here," she said, leaning back into the couch with her arms crossed angrily.

"You're not going to tell us why?" Loki asked, suddenly irritated with the Capitol girl.

She turned her head to the side so she could see them without really moving. "Wasn't planning on it."

"Well, you can't just leave it there," he shot back.

"I can too, but, since you asked so nicely," she said sarcastically, "I'm here because I'm in trouble for helping Kitty-Kat out of the arena and around the Capitol trying to rescue Peeta. To make a really long story short, we got caught, the rebellion got put down, and I've been declared a rebel, but, since my granddad runs the country, I get to have a fighting chance instead of just being shot down like the others. Any more questions, or are you done playing Flickerman?"

"Why Victory?" Victory stared for a moment at Thor, trying to decipher the question.

"You mean my name?" Thor nodded, and Victory sighed. "Ok, first, don't ever call me that if you like your head being attached to the rest of you. Also, don't refer to me as Snow either. Just call me Vic. Second, my granddad named me that because he knew one day he'd have to prove that he was in the right with the Games. He wanted a boy so he could name him Victor. I turned out to be a girl, so he named me Victory. It was so I'd be motivated to live up to my name, to be the Victor. You Careers say you were born to win the Games, well I literally was. Now, can we please end this exceedingly awkward conversation?" Without waiting for a response, she stormed out of the room angrily, slamming the door loudly as she left.

The brothers sat in silence for a minute or so after she'd gone. The tidal wave of unsaid words simmered between them before Loki finally chose to start talking. "So, did you enjoy your chat?" he asked with a sneer.

Thor looked at him, confused. "What do you mean?"

"Our parents spent the whole hour with you. Well, I guess they're really just your parents, but I thought I'd at least warrant a decent 'goodbye, we'll probably never see you again.'"

"They didn't come to see me either. I thought they were with you."

Now it was Loki's turn to be confused. "Then where were they? Come to think of it, shouldn't our friends have come to see us as well?"

"Yes, I thought Sif would come to rant about how she never got a chance to volunteer, if nothing else."

"So are the tributes not allowed to have visitors now?" _Perhaps the fear of revolution resonates in the Capitol more than we've been lead to believe._

"That doesn't matter right now. I mean, it's weird, but right now we need to talk."

"About what?" Loki asked bitterly.

"You know very well what."

"I don't want to talk."

"Well, I do."

"It's not like we can change it now."

Thor lit up. "Maybe we can. People won't want to see two brothers fighting to the death, right?"

Loki laughed bitterly. "Yes they do. They let Cashmere and Gloss go in together last year. You heard the escort, she was _excited_ about this. We're just more entertainment to them."

"Loki, if I'd known what would happen I wouldn't have volunteered." He paused. "Are you angry with me?"

Loki ground his teeth in frustration. "Yeah, I'm mad at you. But I'm not mad because you didn't know I would get picked from my old District, I'm mad that you volunteered in the first place. Did you ever think that I wouldn't want to watch my older brother die, miles away and unable to help? Did you ever think how that might hurt our parents? Did you?" He kept his voice low, but the anger he expressed rose with every word, until he thought he would have to follow Vic's lead and just walk away.

"You don't have to make this harder than it is! Bad enough we're both going in and I have to look out for you. If it was just me, I'd win."

"You don't have to look out for me, I can do that myself. Even if I didn't get picked, it would be a one versus twenty three fight. Are you really that sure of yourself? Because I think the other five Careers are just as sure." Loki laced his fingers together and sat forward, suddenly pensive instead of furious. "Although I suppose that's better odds than me being picked from 12. I'm 16, Thor, with no tesserae. That's four chances out of thousands. How did this happen?"

"It doesn't matter how it happened, we'll figure it out."

"No, we won't. We're both going into that arena, and at least one of us will die. There's nothing to figure out except which of us will be seeing the other's face in the sky."

"If you're trying to make me feel guilty, you're doing a terrible job. It's not my fault you got picked, I didn't know when I-"

Thor was cut off by the arrival of Guinevere, dragging a still fuming Vic behind her. "Oh, there you two are, I've been looking everywhere! So, did you watch the Reapings? You should watch them after dinner, it wouldn't hurt to be acquainted with your competitors," she trilled. "Now come along, you must be starving. We have a feast set out for you!"

The three children reluctantly followed the crazy woman to a dining car, where there was indeed a feast waiting. Two other adults were there, and helping themselves to the food. "Oh, yes, these are your mentors, Natalie Hunt and William Thompson. Will will have Thor, and Natalie will take Victory. Go on, introduce yourselves!" Guinevere pushed them in the direction of the mentors.

"They know me already," Vic said dismissively as she went to get food. "And stop calling me that."

Loki didn't bother to wait for a mentor to be assigned to him. He wasn't technically from District 1, so he couldn't expect a District 1 mentor or a District 1 stylist, so he knew he wouldn't be getting even close to the same amount of sponsors.

Thor went to talk to Will, while Vic sat at the large table and ate without speaking to Natalie. Of course, it would have been rather hard for her to speak to her mentor if she had wanted to, with Guinevere's nonstop chattering. Loki sat as far away from them as possible, which unfortunately wasn't very far, and he had to endure the meal with Guinevere's high pitched voice in the background.

"...and as we all know, District 1 is the closest to the Capitol, we will be arriving in just a few hours. There's just enough time for you to go over the Reapings with your mentors before we arrive. Just think, soon you'll be back at the Capitol, in a cozy bed, and then tomorrow we'll go talk to your stylist for the big parade! I heard they have something stunning in mind for you, dear!" Guinevere may as well have been talking to a statue for all the response she got from Vic.

The food was even better than even that of District 1, the luxury District, and across the country tributes were probably devouring the best meal they'd ever tasted, but it was ash to the tributes of 1. Vic had probably grown up with this food, and soon pushed it away and stared at the table. Neither Thor or Loki felt like touching anything from the Capitol, and only took a few bites.

It finally occurred to Guinevere to give Victory the tape from the Reapings, and she snatched it without a word before hurrying to go watch it. Thor and Loki jumped from the table, happy to have something more productive to do. They were quickly joined in watching the Reapings by their mentors and Guinevere.

They skipped District 1, not wanting to be reminded of the events they had lived through, or else it might have felt more real. District 2, the masonry District, immediately posed a threat to them.

"The girl from 2, Ashley, is one to watch out for. The muscle groups for using a bow are well defined, that will probably be her weapon of choice," Will commented.

"I hate her outfit, though, what disgusting colors!" Guinevere complained. Loki thought the girl's brown and black was much better than Guinevere's vomit green, but he couldn't say so, if only because he needed to focus on the District 2 boy.

He proudly introduced himself as Alex. He had muscles almost as large as Thor, but Vic didn't seem fazed by their large competitor. "He's going to rely on brute strength in a fight. That will most likely get him killed," she said disinterestedly.

"That doesn't mean you should count him out," Natalie chided. "Brute strength isn't going to win the Games for him, but he could easily kill you if you let him get close enough."

The 17 year old tributes from District 3 didn't look like much, but they were from the technology District, so Will warned the trio to keep an eye on them. "That Xander kid's a bit overconfident for my taste," he said, nodding at the boy. "But watch out for Brigit too."

District 4 had more Careers, Ivy and Zach, both 18 like the District 2 Careers. Loki didn't think they looked as dangerous as Careers usually did, but being from the fishing District, they would have an advantage anywhere water was present.

District 5 was the power District, and Loki soon determined that neither Penelope nor Daniel stood much of a chance in the arena, mostly because he put their ages at around 12 and 14.

"Unless they have some secret talent with weapons they won't be much of a problem. But if they get some type of electricity and metal, they could probably set something up to kill. That's how District 5's won in the past," Natalie commented.

The transportation District, 6, produced two relatively healthy tributes, Linda at 17 and Quinn at 18. It didn't seem like they had ever been trained to fight, and they were both obviously scared, so it was generally decided they weren't a threat.

From District 7, the lumber District, were Alice, who looked 18, and Andrew, who looked 14. Despite how painfully thin they were, they could probably both handle an ax decently enough to kill.

Jordan and Greg from 8, the textile District, were little more than wisps, and probably both 13 or 14. Loki was surprised the wind didn't blow them off the stage.

The District 9 tributes, Bella and Henry, were less well fed than one would think people from the grain District would be. Bella couldn't have been older than 15, and Henry was just slightly older than her.

District 10, the livestock District, had younger than average tributes. Amanda couldn't have been more than 14, but Phillip still looked 11. Loki guess he must have very recently turned 12.

District 11 was agriculture, and Loki was relived to see that both Mason and Cynthia were significantly older than the girl, Rue, from two years earlier, or the District may have burst into a riot then and there. There were more Peacekeepers than he had ever seen in the Districts as it was, with the attempted rebellion the year before.

So all in all, it was about as they had expected, until they got to 12. There were Peacekeepers all over the place, and they were clearly agitated. Haymitch was drunk, as was usual for the only surviving Victor from 12. Effie Trinket, in a pink dress almost as revolting as Guinevere's, called for someone named Rebecca, and a 13 year old girl stepped forward, visibly shaking. No one called out to her, no one volunteered, and hardly anyone dared to breath. The next name Effie called received no response, so she repeated Loki Laufeyson, a little louder this time. Again, no one stepped forward, and the Peacekeeper began to enter the crowd of boys, daring him to try to remain hidden. They weren't hitting anyone, yet, but watching it on the TV, Loki felt like he would be sick from anticipation.

Suddenly, someone ran on the stage and whispered something to Effie, who then addressed the crowd. "Not to worry, everyone just calm down, he's not living here now." She looked somewhere off camera and motioned to the bowl of names again. She must have received a negative reply, because she turned back to the crowd, and said with a forced smile, "District 12's tributes for the 76th Hunger Games are Rebecca Smith and Loki Odinson!"

The boys in the crowd were relieved, but the Peacekeepers were still on edge when the camera turned off. The last glimpse Loki saw of his old home was his 13 year old District partner being lead to the Justice Building in tears.

He leaned back and sighed, defeated before the game had begun. "We're going to die, aren't we? Me and Rebecca? There's no way they'll let us survive after what happened last time District 12 won." Thor and Vic didn't have to ask who 'they' were. They both knew the Gamemakers would make sure the District 12 tributes didn't give them any trouble this year.

Unfortunately, Guinevere was not that astute. "Of course not, dear. Why would the other tributes care about your District? You're just another of the 24 to them."

"Thanks for the encouragement, Guin," Loki said, his voice dripping sarcasm.

"Of course, dear. You've just as good a chance as anyone else. And, I think I rather like being called Guin. Do keep calling me that."

"Alright, Guin," Vic started in carefully measured words. "Heard from Emma lately?"

For a second the woman seemed to lose control of her Capitol-approved demeanor as her eyes flashed dangerously. "You know I haven't. Watch your words, Victory. Enough of that now, we'll be in the Capitol soon, we need to make you three look presentable! Not as astounding as you will for the parade tomorrow, but I bet you'll clean up nicely. Go on, there are fresh clothes waiting!" Guin directed the trio to their rooms and left them to get ready for their arrival in the Capitol.


	2. Training

They arrived in the Capitol mostly without incident, although stares followed the trio everywhere they went, with copious amounts of giggling from the Capitol girls, which for some reason seemed to annoy Vic. The president's granddaughter and the brothers from 1 were all anyone seemed to be talking about. As the day went on, tributes from the other Districts began to arrive. District 4 was the last in before nightfall when the tributes were sent to bed, fully expecting a sleepless night, but the comfort of the Capitol soon lulled them into a dreamless slumber.

When they awoke in the morning, District 9 had just pulled in. Only three Districts were unaccounted for, so they were directed their stylists to take their measurements. The measurements of the other five tributes were phoned in from the trains.

When she thought no one was watching, Vic found Octavia and gave a small wink. Octavia pulled her to the side and whispered urgently in Vic's ear. "Have you heard from her?"

"Not yet, but maybe one of the others got a message. Do you think you can pull it off without being caught?"

"They'll know who did it for sure, but I can run. I'm capable of that, at least. And I know I'm not Cinna, but then again, we don't need a girl on fire, do we? That idea turned to ash quite some time ago. No, what we need now," Octavia paused dramatically, waving her hand through the air, "is a phoenix."

"Octavia, I'm all for this plan, but I won't be your Katniss. And anyways, you can't have a Katniss without Peeta."

"Well then, it's a good thing we don't need a Katniss, because our best option for Peeta seems like he has other things on his mind than rebellion. You just get him and the District 12 girl on board with this, I'll take care of the parade. You let me do what I'm good at, you hear?" She waited until Vic's icy blue eyes made contact with her surgically altered purple ones before continuing. "Excellent. Now you do what you're good at." Vic nodded, and hurried away to find Loki.

She found him watching the train from District 12 pull into the Capitol, carrying its lone tribute. "Hey, Loki, can I talk to you?"

"You already are."

"Okay, good. At the parade later today, please don't act weird, don't question me, just do what I do, I promise I'm not crazy, and I _do_ actually know what I'm doing."

He turned to see her, with her crazy black curls and maniac grin. "So, what exactly are we doing?"

"That's a secret."

"What's so secret that you can't tell your coconspirator?"

"It's a... surprise? Just trust me, we'll be the stars of the show."

Loki didn't know how to respond to her. The simple fact was that he _didn't_ trust the president's granddaughter, especially knowing that soon they would be forced to murder each other. But he nodded once, and Vic's psychotic smile grew even larger.

"Excellent! When we're supposed to be getting ready for the parade, send Rebecca to the District 1 area. I'll see you in a few hours." With that she walked off to who-knows-where, leaving Loki confused, but curious as to her plan, and what the outcome might be.

* * *

The preparations for the parade were chaotic to say the least. Stylists rushed about, fetching makeup and clothing and hair accessories. The tributes were all uncomfortable in their outfits, which ranged from downright gorgeous in the case of the sparkling metallics of silver, gold, and red for District 1, to utterly ridiculous, like the chariot for District 6 designed to look like a train with the two tributes basically wearing the chariot. Some were creative, if not pretty, like the pulsing veins of light for District 3.

Vic smiled to herself, noting a few of her friends mixed in among the hustle and bustle of the stylists. Octavia personally did the District 12 makeup, being sure to line Vic's eyes with red jewels the same way she had lined Katniss's the year before. When she was done, Vic and Loki were the picture of black and red, and only Vic noticed that the dress she wore was just a bit too heavy in the back.

She smiled at Loki, doing her best not to seem malevolent. She knew she had made him uncomfortable by asking him to send Rebecca off, but it was best for the girl to be as far from District 12 as she could. Best for us all, Vic reminded herself, steeling her nerves as she climbed into the chariot. She noted with pleasure the adjustments Octavia had made to the the harnesses on the jet black horses, and how easily she could move in the short dress.

She gripped the rim of the chariot, heart racing as the horses trotted forward. _Not yet, let them look at the others first- that way all eyes will be reserved for you._

She heard the gasps when the District 12 girl came out riding with Thor, and wished she could see the look on her granddad's face when he realized who was missing, and where she must be. Slowly, the other Districts moved ahead of them, and then it was their turn in the spotlight of the Capitol.

If there was one thing Victory Snow knew how to do, it was work a crowd. She let them ooh and aah over their black outfits which perfectly matched their hair, with everything that caught the light as red as embers. Then, she lifted three fingers to her lips and reached her hand to the sky. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Loki copy her movements, and had to bite her lip to keep a straight face when the jet black wings sprung out from behind them to arc over their heads.

She knew that in her granddad's eyes, they looked like avenging angels. And then the wings caught fire, and her message was clear- you might have killed the Mockingjay, but the Phoenix will rise to take her place.

_And it only gets better,_ she thought with a smirk. She vaulted over the rim of the chariot and and onto the horse in front of her, and pushed on the harness so the horse would break free from the chariot. Loki did the same, hesitating only slightly, and Vic knew she had found a good ally, in the Games, or out. Vic snapped the reins, signaling her horse to break into a gallop. Flames lingered in the air for a moment where she had been. They rode around the other tributes, trailing fire the whole way. She saw it on the faces of those they passed, tribute or Capitol. They were terrifying. They were breathtaking. And they were so dead.

* * *

"What the heck was that, Victory? Your stupid stunt probably just got us killed!" Loki had every right to be mad, Vic knew. That still didn't mean she was going to let him yell at her in the middle of the hall.

"You played along with it, so technically it's your stupid stunt now, too. Can this wait until we get to the elevator, people are staring? Also, _don't_ call me Victory." Their wings had stopped flaming, but they were starting to feel heavy, and Vic wanted them off as soon as possible.

"Well, what else was I supposed to do, stay behind in a chariot that only had one horse? I didn't want to be out there any longer than I had to."

"I didn't force you to make the symbol of the rebellion."

"You didn't tell me it would make wings pop up! Are you trying to be Katniss?"

"I thought we weren't going to talk until we got to the elevator?"

"Fine, but we are not done." Loki walked beside her, temper as smoldering as the wings on his back. When they got in the elevator Vic detached the wings from Loki and turned so he could get hers off as well.

Without the flashing neon signs reading 'please kill us' above their heads, Loki relaxed, albeit not very much. "I hope you have a very good reason for why we just made targets of ourselves to the Capitol. It's not just me you put in danger, I have other people to think about, who aren't protected from the Capitol like your family."

Vic's voice was low, but unmistakably dangerous. "You don't know what you're talking about," she hissed. "You don't know the _first thing _about it. But if you're so concerned about the Capitol coming for them, I have a way to get people out of the Districts unnoticed. Who would they target?"

He hesitated. This girl could be trying to identify who to hunt down to hurt him. But he didn't get attached to other people enough to hurt, which was his one hope of surviving the Games with his sanity intact. Maybe. And since she had just irrevocably identified herself as a rebel, there was a possibility that she was telling the truth. "My parents from District 1. And Thor, but I guess you can't really do anything about that. If they decided he was a rebel too, then Sif, Hogan, Fandral, and Volstagg. And you never told me why we just did that."

Vic rolled her eyes and stuck her hand on her hip. "We're starting a rebellion, duh. The only people who can are the District 12 tributes, or someone from the Capitol helping them, and I'd have signed Becca's death warrant if I'd let her put on those wings. If you want me to apologize for dragging you into this, then fine, I'm sorry, but there isn't a Capitol boy in the Games to take the fall for 12. They've pegged you as a rebel now, so trust me or don't, you're in this a hundred percent."

"You didn't have to do that, Rebecca's already dead, we both are. And you don't have to make me look like a rebel either, everyone from 12 already does."

"I don't need you to _look_ like a rebel, I need you to _be_ one." The elevator pinged for Vic's floor, but she put a hand on the door to keep it from closing and kept talking. "And since you asked, no, we're _not_ trying to be Katniss and Peeta. Not even close. We're in the middle of something a lot bigger than this Game, or the Game after it. Like it or not, you're along for this ride, 12. If you want out, your best option's the interview, but that's assuming my granddad buys whatever lie you tell to cover this. I can already tell you he won't. I suggest you ask Haymitch what he thinks you should say. Until then, use the training time. This will work a thousand times better if you can actually defend yourself." She stepped back and let the elevator close, sending Loki to his own floor.

Vic stood there for a while after he was gone, trying to determine if he would be her ally or her murderer in the end. But there was really no way to know.

* * *

Loki's sparring partner surprised him with a judo flip, leaving him breathless on the ground for about the ninth time that day. Somewhere to his right, Vic laughed, although her laugh was of genuine humor, unlike the other tributes that had gathered around to watch. Their laughter was attacking him, and Loki wished they were in the arena so he could fight back without the Peacekeepers interfering. As it was, he just glared at them, spurring more laughter. He hated Vic for this. Even if she said it was to help him, it was just making him look weak.

Vic completely ignored the other tributes, focusing only on the task at hand. "Okay, so we've pretty much established that you completely suck at unarmed combat. Want to try swords next?"

Loki cringed, already imagining how horribly that would go. "Can I just stay at the wild plant station?" he asked, still wincing from the beatings he'd endured at the hands of the impassive hand-to-hand combat trainer.

"Nope! I think we should try rock climbing." Vic grabbed his arm and yanked him roughly to his feet. "Let's go!"

"No, I really hate rocks, is there a section for strategy?"

Vic scowled at him. "You'll never improve if you stick to what you're good at. See, I'm terrible at socializing, therefore I will be spending all day with you. Bet I'm better at dodging stuff than you are!"

Loki fought to keep down a groan. "I bet you're right. I also bet it would be very productive to play chess." He started to walk away, but Vic grabbed him by the back of his collar.

"Let's try the spears!" She pulled him backwards to the spear station, only releasing him to pick up a spear of her own. Loki couldn't help but be irritated that she kept forcing him to practice fighting, but agreed, mostly because it would be hard for him to get beaten up when the station was solely offensive.

Unfortunately, it was hard, but not impossible. He accidentally whacked Vic in the head with the shaft of his spear, and she proceeded to do the same, forcefully and repeatedly. He pushed the spear over his head to block the blows, so Vic swung lower, at his ribcage. He felt more than saw her incoming blow, and twisted his own spear down to block it. She took a few more swings that he parried, before he saw an opening and jabbed the spear at her. Vic blocked it, and locked eyes with Loki, grinning and brushing off the Peacekeepers that came to break up the fight.

"So you _are_ good at something! We just have to find a spear when we get in," Vic said happily. She tossed her spear at one of the holograms they were supposed to be fighting, and smirked when it shattered, indicating a kill shot. "You try."

The first spear he tossed went way wide, and the hologram ended up getting close enough to jab him with its 'sword,' ending the simulation. Loki moved to go to a different area, but Vic handed him another spear and shoved him back in. His second attempt was better, as he let hologram get within a foot of him before ducking under the sword that was swung at him and ramming the spear through its head.

He knew their unspoken alliance was not putting on an intimidating show for the the other tributes, like Ashely with her bow, or Alex with his sword. Thor was dominating the knife throwing station, and Ivy was excelling with shuriken, the small throwing stars that she hadn't yet failed to sink into the neck of a hologram. Zach had claimed small but light twin swords he called katanas. He wasn't as good as the other Careers, but he could kill.

But Vic clearly had no intentions of putting on a show, at least not yet, and she was determined that Loki would be able to throw spears with relative accuracy before the week was up. Inevitably, he got mad at her within the hour, and yelled that she should be doing something useful instead of demanding that he train.

She frowned, not having wanted to show off her skills too early. But, she knew she had to prove to her ally that she could fight if she wanted him to do the same, so Vic stalked over to where Ivy was throwing shuriken. She stole a handful of her shuriken and proceeded to finish off the holograms she was fighting.

"Hey! Those are mine!" Ivy protested, as Vic took over the simulation she was doing, ignoring her entirely. She hit every hologram with a kill shot faster than Ivy had been hitting them, and finished by bouncing a shuriken off the wall so it would rebound into the last hologram.

"I don't need any more training," she said cockily to the startled tributes that had come to see what the commotion was and handed a smoldering Ivy the remaining shuriken. With that, she led Loki back to the spear station and reset a simulation for him.

Thor watched them out of the corner of his eye, like he had been doing since training started. He ended the simulation he was on with the knives and approached Vic. He didn't shrink back from her glare as she had expected, and instead addressed her. "That was quite impressive, for a Capitol girl." Vic didn't respond, so Thor continued. "You probably know I want to be allies with my brother. I assume you two are already allies?" Vic answered only with a slight nod. "So, are _we_ allies?" He offered a hand, and after a second Vic shook it.

"Allies."

"I'd still like to know how a Capitol girl of all people got to be good with any sort of weaponry."

"Who says I'm Capitol?" With that cryptic half-answer she turned back to watching Loki practice with the spears. He was improving, slowly but surely.

"You're Snow's granddaughter. Of course you're Capitol." Vic stiffened a bit at the mention of her grandfather, slipping back into the emotionless expression Thor had first met her with, and he took her silence to be a negative reply. "Well, if you aren't Capitol, then what are you?"

"That's a... surprise. You'll find out when everyone else does." She eyed a few of the Careers out of the corner of her eye. "I didn't want to show them that. I've already made the Games hard for myself, the Gamemakers are going to make the arena hell for anyone in my alliance, you can bet on that. Now I've got the Careers on my back too. Are you sure you still want in?"

"If Loki's your ally, then so am I."

She nodded slowly. "Okay. The Gamemakers and the other tributes have pretty much decided that Loki and I are allies after the parade. They'd still target him if we split up now. But that's as large as this alliance gets. We can't trust anyone else."

"We can't trust each other."

"That's true." The bell for lunch sounded, and all the tributes raced to the cafeteria, eager to begin forming their alliances.

The Careers sat together, but the tributes from 1 were missing from their ranks. Thor sat with Loki, but Vic got up to observe the movements of the other tributes. Penelope, Phillip, and Rebecca had identified each other as the youngest, and therefore the most trustworthy, and had formed an alliance of their own.

Amanda and David each had a table to themselves, as did the District partners from 8, 9, and 11. The rest of the tributes pushed two of the rectangular tables together and sat as a group. They easily struck up a conversation, which promptly ceased when Vic took a seat next to Xander.

"So," she said casually. "Have you heard from Emma lately?"

Several eyes darted around nervously before Brigit leaned forward conspiratorially and whispered, "She said it'll take three days."

A few feet away, Ivy stood abruptly from her place at the Career table and began yelling at a Peacekeeper at the top of her lungs, presumably for bumping into her chair. "You stupid klutz! Why don't watch where you're going, idiot!"

Peacekeepers rushed towards the Careers to stop Ivy from strangling her first victim. Vic quickly took advantage of the distraction. "Perfect, that'll be easy enough. Xander, Brigit, you're allied with Daniel. Try to tail District 9 if you can. Alice, stick with your District partner and Amanda. Quinn, you're with District 8, try to follow 11. Linda, you go with the younger kids' alliance. Everyone steer clear of my alliance and the Careers. Got it or questions?"

"Got it," the 17 and 18 years olds replied to the younger girl in unison, before scurrying off to their new alliances. The Peacekeepers finally got Ivy settled down and resumed their patrol.

Vic walked back slowly to her own alliance, carefully watching the alliances she'd just formed. The littles were somewhat taken aback that another tribute was betting on them enough to join them, but seemed happy to have the help. Daniel welcomed the District 3 tributes easily, pleased at having finally found friends in this nightmare. Amanda and Andrew hit it off immediately when Alice introduced them, and spent the rest of the time pointing at other tributes with whispers and poorly stifled giggles. Vic decided to start calling them Triple A, to see if it would catch on if nothing else. The District 8s watched Quinn with suspicion at first, but he made a few jokes and slowly their narrowed eyes and creased foreheads were replaced by tentative smiles. This didn't surprise Vic. She'd never met anyone who hadn't fallen for Quinn's playful smile and light tone.

_Now for the tricky part- staying alive._ It felt like letting a wolf prowl amongst sheep to let a Career in her alliance, especially since she knew she couldn't trust him, but she saw no way around it without raising too many alarms, so she decided to tolerate Thor, at least until he stabbed her in the back. Well, tried to, anyways.

"So, who's ready to get back to training?" Vic asked, sliding in next to Loki.

He sighed. "Why do you care when we go back? It would really just be me training, you and Thor can actually use some type of weapon."

"Yeah, but since they'll already be after us, we've got to show them what we can do. The Careers think they can scare us? Why don't we show them what fear is?" Vic nodded to Thor. "Can you use anything besides those knives?"

"I can use a sword, and pretty much anything heavy enough to cave in a skull."

"Perfect. We'll do swords first, then how about maces?" Vic's maniacal grin was back. "I've always wanted to try using spiky stuff."

Thor shook his head. "Maybe hold off on the maces. I saw a few war hammers back there, do you know how to use those?"

"No, I guess I can learn, but seriously, they have maces here!"

Loki tapped the table thoughtfully. "And where does a Capitol girl pick up skills like these, huh? Do they have a 'I know this is the Capitol and all, but we're here on the off chance that you might be a rebel and have to be in the Hunger Games' Academy? I've never heard of one of those."

"No, but I should open one. And anyways, who said I'm a Capitol girl?"

"Guinevere."

"True, but Guin has been... consistently unreliable?"

"President Snow."

"He lies for a living. Now, really, let's go train, food is for soft Capitol peeps." She got up and walked to the training hall. After scarfing down a few more bites, Thor and Loki followed. Vic immediately sent Loki back to the spear station, and picked up a pair of double edged swords for herself and Thor. "Do these work?" she asked, holding them out for inspection.

He nodded and picked one up, testing the weight. "So, who's going first?"

"You mean with the holograms? Let's do them together, it'd be closer to what we'd end up doing in the arena." She selected the hardest attack pattern the machine knew and took up a fighting stance, Thor facing the ones coming from behind her.

The holograms started slowly enough, only one or two at a time, from the same direction, and they were dispatched easily enough. Then the machine started increasing the ferocity of the attacks as it registered their skill level, per Vic's instructions. They began to come from many sides at once, in packs, or sometimes surrounding them in a circle. Eventually just waving their swords through the holograms wasn't enough, and Vic and Thor began to fight in earnest.

Thor tended to stay in the same place and let enemies come to him, while Vic darted around, occasionally performing a flip that, had the holograms been solid, would allow her to push off their shoulders and land behind them to get an exposed shot at their back. Their fighting styles blended well, Vic using her smaller size to take out an opponent from the legs, and letting them fall on Thor's sword. Whenever Vic got in the middle of a pack, as she inevitably did while leaping over their opponents, Thor fished her out, swinging his sword in wide arcs instead of using it like a large dagger, as Vic was more inclined to do.

After thirty minutes the holograms turned off, probably because the machine had exhausted its depths of creativity for the pair of fighters. They put the swords away, not bothered by any of the tributes who had come to gawk, as they all scampered off when Vic and Thor ceased being distracted by the holograms. All except for the Careers.

Alex was giving them nothing short of a death glare from where he stood waiting to resume using the swords, infuriated that his weapon of choice could also be used by what was quickly being regarded as the rebel Career pack. Zach wasn't pleased that there was anyone else who could theoretically use twin blades in the arena, and Ivy was already irritated that Vic could wield her throwing stars, as unusual a weapon as they were. The only one not bothered by their display was Ashely, who was still using the bow and arrows, and didn't even acknowledge their existence.

"So, what now, big guy? I still want to test out those maces." Vic bumped Thor playfully.

"Could you even lift one?" he laughingly asked in response.

She frowned. "Maybe... You could at least let me try."

"Why don't we see if you're any good at archery. Come on!" He led the way to the archery station and picked up a bow for her.

Vic shook her head. "Uh, how about no? If you want to give it a try, be my guest."

Thor held out the bow and selected a hologram simulation for her, and Vic realized how annoying she must have seemed to Loki earlier. She sighed, and swung a quiver over her shoulder, wanting to get it over with as quickly as possible. She pulled an arrow out of the quiver and was attempting to notch it when the first hologram appeared. It was moving a lot slower than Vic knew a human would, which was quite discouraging since she still hadn't gotten the arrow to lay against the bow without swinging to the side.

She drew the arrow back and released, to no effect other than sending the arrow spinning across the floor. She drew another from the quiver, taking a few steps back from the slowly approaching hologram. She pulled it back faster this time, but when she released not only did the arrow not go anywhere except dangerously close to her foot, but the bow snapped her in the face. She'd pulled back with the hand holding the bow before it had straightened, and the result was a large red welt that was quickly forming above her eyebrow.

The lone hologram slashed her with the small knife it carried, and the simulation ended. Vic threw down the bow. "Ok, so archery isn't my thing. We are _so_ moving on now. Do you like chess?"

"You sound like my brother."

"Well, you know what, I already have a weapon I can use, I don't have to be good at everything." Vic was irritated, and had no problems with expressing it.

"And what if a bow is the only weapon we have available? I can't use one either, and it would be asking a lot of Loki to learn in such a short period of time."

"Then we can use the arrows like daggers. I highly doubt we will ever be in a situation where we absolutely have to use a bow." She rubbed the welt where the bow had smacked her, making it more red than before.

"Very well. So, what do we do with the rest of the week?"

"I don't know. Get used to fighting together, all three of us. Scare the crap out of everyone else?"

Thor didn't have to think very long. "I approve of this plan."

"Good. Now, maces, let's go!"


	3. Interviews

Loki crashed on the couch in the main room for District 12 with a groan. His allies were unforgiving in making him train with the spears. He was better than he had been that morning, but he knew he wouldn't reach the level of a Career in the short week they were allowed.

Perhaps it wouldn't have been that bad if all the other tributes were as new to weaponry as he was. In fact, he'd probably look down on the tributes from the lesser Districts for their lack of intelligence, but it was very distracting and discouraging to see the Careers using the deadliest weapons in there like children's playthings. If all the Careers had trained like Thor had, then they had been using those weapons since they could stand on two feet.

An incoherent mumble alerted Loki to the fact that he wasn't the only one in the main room. He knew Rebecca was already asleep in her bedroom, exhausted from the first day of training, and Effie had run off to some party. The only other person allowed in was Haymitch, who was sitting at the table with a bottle in his hand, muttering under his breath.

Loki remembered Vic telling him to ask Haymitch what to say in the interview, and decided it was about time his mentor started handing out useful advice. It was the least he owed him and Rebecca, since it was doubtful anyone from the Capitol would be willing to talk to Haymitch to sponsor them.

He started the conversation by yanking the man's bottle out of his hands, and dodging the punch that followed. "A lesson in unarmed combat already? I didn't think you watched the training."

"I don'. Give it back."

"First, tell me how to make Snow not kill me."

"The president or the girl? You don' have a chance with the old man after the trick with the wings, and I'm not giving anymore relationship advice to tributes." He swiped his hand out, but Loki pulled the bottle just out of his reach.

"So tell me what happened to them. Not the abridged version the Capitol tries to sell to the Districts, tell me what really happened."

"T' who?"

"Katniss and Peeta. The rebellion. Anything!" He clenched his teeth. If he couldn't get straight answers from Vic, he'd just have to get them from his drunk mentor.

"They're dead, the rebellion's dead, what more d'ya want t' know?"

"Fine, then tell me who Emma is. Victory asked Guinevere about her, and Guin got mad. Who is she?"

Haymitch's eyes locked on him dangerously. "Someone you shouldn't know about. I see that Capitol girl's quite a bit more talkative than she should be. Just don't mention that name to anyone. They already think you're a rebel, you don't want to enforce that idea."

"But I'm _not_ a rebel!"

"That doesn't matter. District 12 is the new 13, an' it an' everyone they decide are part of it are rebels to them." Haymitch made a swirling motion with his hand that looked more like he was having a seizure.

"But I'm not part of 12 either! I haven't been since I was a kid."

Haymitch swayed in the chair, either lost in memories or in alcohol. "Same mining accident that killed Katniss's dad. I know."

"I'm _not_ 12."

"Doesn't matter. They need a scapegoat to kill in the Games, and you and Becca are it. Sorry, kid, nothin' I can do about that." He took the bottle back from Loki and took another drink. He glared at him out of the corner of his eye when he realized he hadn't left. "What d' you want?"

"Lots of stuff. I want answers, I want to live, I want my brother out of the Games."

"That's a pretty big wish list. 'Fraid I can't help ya. Answers and mercy are the only things in short supply at the Capitol. Believe me, kid, I've looked. You're out of luck, out of time." He took another drink.

Loki ground his teeth, furious with District 12's only Victor. "Why did I expect help from you? You're just an old man drowning his sorrows in a bottle."

"And you're just a kid who'll be dead within a week. Go away." Haymitch tipped the bottle all the way back, leaning his chair as he did. Loki shoved the back of the chair, sending the drunk man sprawling out on the floor before walking away angrily.

* * *

By the end of the week of training, the eight alliances had gotten to know their members, and all had some sort of strategy for the Games. The littles and Linda planned to hide until there were very few others left. The Careers had decided to take the Cornucopia, as they believed was the right of the Careers. Triple A figured they could take all the edible food in the arena, and only leave poisonous plants for the other tributes. The techies had drawn up and committed to memory plans for all sorts of traps they could build with materials common to the arena, and Quinn's group observed the other tributes, memorizing strengths and weaknesses to use against them.

The rebel Career pack was still working with their weapons when they were told to clear out for individual assessments. Loki could use a spear with relative ease, not as good as a Career, but better than Vic had expected, and soon joined Vic and Thor in the simulations.

As it turned out, Vic couldn't lift a mace any more than she could shoot. She'd instead entertained herself by sliding it along the floor so she could use it as a battering ram and trip the holograms. Thor could then easily dispatch them with the war hammer he'd claimed to have more experience with than the knives.

The first in for assessment was Thor. Waiting outside, Vic wished she could sit by Loki, to have some form of company, even if she found the raven haired boy to be rather condescending, but he was on the other side of the room. Several loud metallic crashes could be heard inside the training center, and Vic wished she was allowed to watch. Whatever was going on in there was bound to be more entertaining than sitting outside and staring at the wall.

Ten minutes later, Vic was called into the training center. A few Avoxes were cleaning up some broken glass near where they had been using the mace and war hammer earlier. The Gamemakers watched her with immense curiosity, and Vic wondered how much her granddad had told them about her.

Vic hadn't given a lot of thought to what she would do. She suspected that her assessment would be something of a joke, after all. _Although, I guess there's something I can do if I really want to know... It would certainly prove to my allies that I had no say in my score. _She marched to the archery station and selected a bow that was much too large for the small, lithe girl. The corresponding quiver was heavier than she'd anticipated, and she put on a show of stumbling under its weight.

She pulled on the string to test it, and the bow just barely bent. Satisfied that she looked like a total weakling, she picked out a rather difficult simulation and drew an arrow. She didn't even get it notched before a hologram charged her. She rolled to the side, and somehow managed to send the arrow flying. It went a yard, and landed harmlessly beside the hologram's foot. The string, however, snapped her across her left wrist, and she dropped the bow with a shriek of pain.

The hologram turned around and slid its sword through her, and the simulation ended. She turned her attention to the shocked Gamemakers, and was quite pleased to find each one of them cringing. The new head Gamemaker, someone named Heimdall, raised an eyebrow at her, drawing Vic's attention to his surgically colored eyes that reminded her of Octavia. "You're dismissed," he said, making a note on his clipboard, and watched her with suspicion gleaming in his golden eyes until she left the training center.

"I think that went well," she commented to Thor when she stepped out.

The older boy shifted his weight sheepishly to from one foot to another. "I may have scared some of them. Is that a problem?"

"Not in the slightest, my friend." She rubbed her wrist, already feeling the welt form. "They could do with a good dose of fear."

* * *

Loki had a plan going into the training center. He would use the spears that he'd spent the week training with, and hope that his score would be higher than 2. Of course, that was before he remembered that he'd snuck in a book from the Capitol's library for times when he thought Vic wasn't watching.

_Oh, why bother? Everyone already thinks I'm weak, no reason to prove them right by trying too hard. And it's not like Haymitch is going to let me have anything from the sponsors anyways. _He picked up the book from where he'd hidden it in the camouflage station. Then he sat down on a ledge of the rock climbing station and started reading.

The Gamemakers let a few minutes pass like this, before the head Gamemaker interrupted him. "You're dismissed." Loki shut the book and walked out of the training center with it.

Most of the other tributes had left, but Vic and Thor had opted to wait for him. "So, how'd it go? You were done almost as quickly as Vic," Thor commented.

Vic looked pointedly at the book, and he shrugged. "It was fine. It won't take them long to score us once Rebecca's done in a few minutes. Where do we want to watch from?"

Vic motioned for them to follow her. "I know this great spot in the square, and the best part is they'll never find us. Come on!"

* * *

About an hour later, nestled in one of the brightly lit oaks ringing the large square in the Capitol, Thor watched the giant screen, waiting for the scores, while Loki continued reading the book he'd taken from the training center. Vic scanned the crowd below them, looking for Peacekeepers that had come to spoil the fun.

The Panem anthem blared, and Thor's name, district, and picture were flashed on the screen, followed by his score. It was 11, the highest anyone was ever given on the 1 to 12 scale, aside from Katniss and Peeta the year before. Cheers erupted below them, mostly from teenaged girls with lots of giggling mixed in.

"Nicely done," Vic whispered to him as her information was displayed. The number that followed quite effectively silenced the Capitol, momentarily at least.

"Now, what did a Capitol girl do to get a 12?" Loki asked, slightly awed, but more suspicious than anything else. Beside him, Thor sunk into a sullen pout, the branches below the large boy creaking dangerously.

"Archery," she whispered back, rolling up her long sleeve so they could see the angry red welt on her wrist. "And I'm not Capitol."

"The scores aren't performance based, are they?"

"No. Not for us, at least, although Thor probably deserved his. High scorers get sponsors, but they also get targeted by the other tributes. Don't be surprised if yours is higher than you thought."

The excitement in the Capitol was significantly lower than usual for the other tributes after Vic's groundbreaking score that she hadn't earned. The Careers got the usual Career scores between 9 and 11, except for Zach, who got a 7, and the tributes from the other Districts got between 2 and 6.

Then they got to District 12, and the usual pattern was broken. Loki received a 10, and Rebecca got an 8. Vic highly doubted that either had earned the score, and her suspicions were confirmed when Loki whispered that he'd spent the time reading.

"This isn't fair. It's not your fault you're from 12. It's not Becca's either. I hate that they do this," Vic whispered back.

"Hate that they do what? Fix the scores or have the Games? And don't worry about Rebecca, for all you know she's a better fighter than you are."

"Both," Vic sighed. "And no, she's not a fighter, she's a kid. Just like us." She paused for a moment. "I don't want to go back there tonight. Is it okay if we stay here?"

"I'm all for breaking the rules. I do appreciate having a choice in the matter this time," Loki told her stiffly.

"Well, we'll have to get used to sleeping in trees. You two have no intentions of taking the Cornucopia, do you?" Thor asked.

"I wasn't planning on being taken out in the bloodbath. Of course, no one who dies there ever intends to," Vic replied darkly.

"We could take the Careers," Thor mumbled, sounding more like a child than Loki could ever recall.

"Go to sleep already."

* * *

Their mentors found the trio the following morning, stiff and cold. "We have been looking everywhere for you three! Do you know how big of a scare you caused the Gamemakers and the President?" Natalie yelled up at them.

"I hope they all dropped dead of fear," Vic yawned, in an only slightly sarcastic manner, dropping lightly to her feet. "What time is it?"

Haymitch eyed the leaves tangled in her messy black hair. "It's eleven o'clock, and your new stylists are having panic attacks. All the other tributes showed up on time. And really, if you plan on sleeping in the trees, someone needs to stay awake to get the other two up. Seven would be a ridiculous hour to be asleep in the Games."

"Or maybe we'll just be nocturnal and deal with the mutts. Which way to the stylists?"

"Oh, no, sweetheart, we'll be staying with you this time. Your granddad's threatening all our heads if you three vanish again."

Vic made a face. "Fine. When's the interview?"

"Yours would be the first, so, six hours."

Loki and Thor tumbled out of the tree, not quite awake, but awake enough to stand. "And the stylists are worried? That's an absurd amount of time," Loki grumbled, regretting the decision to not stay in a cozy Capitol bed instead of the uncomfortable tree. Haymitch fixed a sullen glare on him, which Loki decided to ignore.

"It's not that long if you're supposed to look like you _didn't_ wake up in a tree this morning. And I thought _I'd_ had some wild nights," Will muttered.

* * *

Vic tugged unhappily on the waist of horrendous lime green ball gown she'd been forced to wear, one with far too many ruffles for her taste. Her stylist insisted it made her look elegant, but all Vic could think of was that she looked like some little girl's plaything. _At least you talked her out of the hat,_ she tried to console herself. The hat was huge and appeared to be styled after yet another well known bird, the vulture. Without it, the dress looked significantly less ridiculous.

She twirled around, trying to see if there was an angle with fewer ruffles. There wasn't. Sighing, she inspected her allies' costumes. Apparently, Thor's outfit from the chariot ride had gone over well in the Capitol, because they used the same color scheme for the more formal suit they had all the boys wear. The new District 12 stylist wanted to stay as far from her predecessor's designs as she could, and gave Loki a green and gold suit that Vic knew would send the Capitol girls giggling almost as much as they would for Thor.

Just before the interviews, Haymitch approached the trio. "So, you all have plans for the interviews, right?"

Vic nodded. "I'm all set, but you may want to run through their plans while I'm onstage. You don't happen to know where I could find a less stupid dress, do you?"

"Smile and wear it, sweetheart, at least this won't tick your grandpa off any more than he already is. The three of you'd better watch what you say."

"I can say whatever I want, Haymitch. I don't have anything left for him to take." Vic turned to stalk off, but Haymitch grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

"That's what you think, Victory. You may be the Capitol's darling, but just remember that you weren't the first. And you won't be the last, they'll get over you. You made a big mistake forming an alliance so early. Every rebellious word from your mouth will make it harder for you and your allies in the arena. You might think you aren't being watched, but the cameras never sleep, sweetheart, and you three are on Panem's center stage. They're _always_ gonna be watching."

"Then let them watch, I've got quite a show in mind. And _don't_ call me Victory." Vic pulled away from Haymitch and walked out on the stage with Caesar Flickerman. He gestured to the strange-looking Capitol chair beside him, and Vic sat down with a dramatic flourish.

"Ladies and gentleman, may I introduce today's first tribute, a young woman who needs no introduction to this stage, Victory Snow!"

Vic smiled playfully, and when she spoke, her voice had more of a Capitol accent than it usually did. "Oh, Caesar, how many times have I told you to call me Vic?"

"Of course, Vic, my apologies. How silly of me not to remember. This isn't your first time on my show, we've had several great interviews over the years. Here's hoping we'll have many more!"

Vic instantly changed her expression to one of deep regret. "I'm so sorry, Caesar, I don't think that will be possible. As much I've enjoyed all of our many chats, I'm afraid that this will be the last."

Caesar was shocked for a moment. "But, you had the highest score! And you're the President's granddaughter. Of course you'll be back."

"As you wish, old friend. Now, I thought this was an interview, not a reunion."

"Of course, dear. So, first, you were in the wrong chariot in the parade at the beginning of the week. Did you get lost?"

Vic's laughter rang out, surprising light for what Loki was sure was faked. "No, I begged Rebecca to switch with me. I wanted to be competing for District 12, but Granddaddy insisted I take District 1. I just _love_ the work of the District 12 stylists."

"Well, you look marvelous in this dress."

"Why, thank you, Caesar!" Her glowing smile was matched by the glitter on her fluttering eyelashes. Together they managed to mask the hate in her eyes with grace and beauty.

Loki had to turn away. He didn't like Vic that much, and it was making him mad that his ally would fake a personality like this, in such contrast to the emotionless girl he'd met in District 1, and the determined rebel who he'd ridden with in the parade. This was so wrong, she couldn't be acting like a Capitol girl now, with her insistence that she was anything but. He resolved to turn on her earlier in the Games than he'd planned for making their alliance look weak with this act.

Haymitch was apparently done watching Vic as well. "So, what are you two gonna talk about? You can only use the 'competing against family' topic for so long. What personalities are you going to use?"

"Why can't we just act normal?" Thor asked.

"'Cause normal's boring to the Capitol. You want sponsors, you think of something as interesting as being the president's granddaughter, 'cause that's who you've got to compete with." He pointed vaguely in the direction of the stage, where the Capitol audience

Loki glared at him. "Well, do you have any useful advice? If you'd don't, then just stop telling us how screwed we are so we don't have to hear your pathetic voice."

Haymitch ignored him and pointed to the stage. "Just a few seconds left, you ready, Thor?"

Onstage, Caesar kept talking to Vic. "So, Vic, is there anything you want to tell the people at home before the interview's over?"

The grin she gave him in reply could have made a shark quiver, but the people of the Capitol didn't seem to notice the malice in her sparkling smile. "Why, certainly, Caesar." She looked directly at one of the cameras, the evil smirk still fixed on her face. "I'll be ready for you, District 13."

The bell sounded before Caesar could question her, and Vic practically ran from the stage. She probably would have run, but her ruffled dress and high heels prevented it.

Loki almost laughed."I feel sorry for whichever poor sap has to follow that up." He glanced at his brother, who was glaring daggers at him. "Oh, right. Well, good luck."

Caesar sat dumbstruck while the crowd exploded into excited murmurs. "Er... ladies and gentlemen, that was Victory Snow, who I think I should really reset the timer for..." He glanced to the someone standing on the other side of the stage with a questioning glance. "...or not. Our next tribute is Thor Odinson!"

Vic mouthed "_Sorry_," as Thor passed her. She made her way through the tributes, all of whom stared at her like sharks would a lone fish, until she got to Haymitch and Loki. "Huh, I thought they'd make a bit bigger deal of that. Anyways." She waved her hand dismissively.

Haymitch shook his head. "There isn't a word to describe how much trouble you're in. Did you not listen to me at all earlier? I don't give you advice because I like the sound of my own voice." He shot a scowl at Loki. "I've been told it's pathetic."

"Oh, were you listening? That makes one of us."

"Victory Snow?" a Peacekeeper from somewhere to their left called out. Vic's eyes widened, and she ducked closer to Loki, trying not to be seen. "Victory Snow, your grandfather would like to speak with you."

"Don't let them find me, don't let them find me, don't let them find-"

"Over here!" Loki called back to the Peacekeeper. Vic shot him a look of pure hatred as a group of five Peacekeepers started in their direction.

"Victory Snow, you will accompany us." They formed a small circle, leaving the middle open to suggest that she walk there. Vic eyed the weapons they carried for a moment before conceding to fact that she'd have to play along.

"Don't call me that," she snapped, heading off to her granddad's office without allowing the Peacekeepers to lead her. However, they simply formed a circle around her and matched their pace to hers.

Loki edged away from Haymitch to watch Thor's interview without feeling the slightest bit guilty for telling the Peacekeepers where Vic was. The crowd burst into laughter at something Thor said, and Loki gave an inward sigh of relief, although it was mixed with a good deal of jealously. Of course they liked him. He'd always been better at making friends. Loki just hoped Thor could make enough friends to keep them alive them, despite Victory suddenly losing her mind.

* * *

President Snow's office was well-decorated, with posh furniture, beautiful decorations, and a plush carpet that was as soft and white as snow. Vic had to appreciate the irony that she studied every detail of one snow to avoid even flicking her eyes in the direction of another. He stood from the mahogany desk and paced in front of her, only his boots entering her line of sight.

His voice was as cold as his name, as cold as the heart she wondered if he had. "Do you remember our deal, Victory? The one where you behave like the Capitol girl they thought you were, and I don't hunt down those pathetic District 13 rebels you claim as family? Do you remember that?"

She took a deep breath to gain her courage, and looked up, meeting his eyes dead on. They were the same icy blue as her own. "I thought we also agreed to be honest. It saves time. _Don't_ call me _Victory_," she snapped, just as coldly.

"Very well, Emma, do you remember?"

"I do."

"Then why did you break it? You've done everything you said you wouldn't. The wings, the interview, your allies' family and known associates disappearing from District 1 in the middle of the night. I've even heard people call your alliance the rebel Career pack! If you refuse to hold up your end, I won't keep mine."

"You won't harm 13." Emma spoke with complete confidence, despite her grandfather's agitated state. She smiled inwardly, not yet having heard if her orders for the evacuation had been followed, but her mood damped again when she thought of how quickly he had concluded she was behind it.

"Haven't I already done so?"

"I said you won't, not can't. Not now, not when _she's_ there. Or don't _you_ remember?" The venom in her voice would have sent anyone else reeling. But one accusation that could never be made of President Snow was that he was anyone. He ruled the known world, and granddaughter or not, Emma couldn't break his will that easily.

He pounded the desk, sending piles of paper jumping, and loose pages floating to the floor. "She chose the rebels over me! I would rain _destruction_ on District 13!"

Emma resisted the urge to start at the loud noise and merely shrugged. "You can't even find us. We move all the time. You'd have never taken me if I hadn't come here."

"And you'd have never have known you had a grandfather. That would have been better." He turned his attention to the small television he had left muted on his desk. He turned on the volume and listened for a moment to Thor's interview. The audience was eating every word, and the front of the stage was mobbed by girls vying for his attention. They all swooned when he told Caesar he didn't have a girlfriend in District 1.

"That's one of your allies, yes? The Capitol seems to like him. I usually give the Capitol what they want, however, in this case I think you and the Districts need to be taught a lesson about what happens to people who ally themselves with rebels."

He turned around to face his granddaughter. "You know I control the Gamemakers, and thus, the arena. Which mutts go where, what 'natural' disasters occur, who gets sponsored and who doesn't. The other tributes can waste their time jumping through hoops to win over the people, but in the end, you and I know that the Capitol isn't in control, I am. You may believe that your District 13 followers will get you and your little allies out, but I promise you they won't. And I, unlike you, never make a promise I don't intend to keep, at least not to my granddaughter. You will issue an apology, tonight, or you will not leave that arena. Say you claimed to be from 13 on a dare, or a bet."

An unnerving smile crept across her face. "You won't kill me."

"I will."

"Ah, but you can't." She put her hands down on the desk and leaned forward. "There's exactly one way this mess doesn't blow up in your face, and that's if _I win_. But what if I don't win? What if the Capitol isn't as strong as the Districts believe? What then?" Emma paused to let her threat sink in. "You think you hold all the cards, but I'm the wild card, and you don't hold me. There's _nothing_ you can do to hurt me. I'm untouchable."

Snow leaned on the desk, copying his granddaughter's movements until they were nose to nose. "I don't have to find District 13, they're coming here to get you. I'll just sit back and shoot them out of the sky. You've already determined their fate, we are no longer negotiating that. You will take back your words in the interview because if you don't, I will make you watch everyone in that arena suffer, especially those that ally themselves with you, and you will know that the Districts feel the weight of your actions a thousand times more than they do."

Emma broke his gaze and stared down at the smooth grain of the desk. She hesitated, weighing the consequences of her choice. "What should I say?" she finally asked, defeated.

"Anything but the truth."

"Do you mean the truth that you stole me? Is _that_ the truth I should hide?" She returned her glare to him, spitting out the words.

"That you're anything other than Victory Snow."

She straightened up indignantly. "My name is _Emma_. You can take _everything else_, but my name is mine." She turned and fled the room, ignoring the tears bristling in the corners of her eyes as well as the Peacekeepers shouting at her to stop. She hadn't gotten very far when a small dart caught the back of her neck, and Emma faded into darkness.


	4. The Arena

Vic sat bolt upright in the soft Capitol bed she had neglected the night before yesterday. She'd been in a cold sweat, and for a blissful moment allowed herself to believe last night's events were some horrible dream. She reached her hand up to her neck, rubbing where the dart had struck her. Her eyes shot open when she realized that pressing the spot hurt, although it wouldn't have if the dart was truly a creation of her subconscious.

She tumbled out of the bed, and threw open the door to the main room for District 1. Thor, Guin, and their mentors were already quietly eating breakfast, and seemed startled when Vic came storming out.

"Would someone please tell me what happened last night?" Vic asked, slowly beginning to calm down from her state of near panic.

Guin gasped. "Good heavens, Victory, you look terrible!"

Vic touched her face and found carpet burn from falling outside the President's office, matching the ones on her hands where she'd instinctively tried to break her fall. "It's nothing, don't call me Victory." The response was habitual by this point.

"Oh, those too, I meant your hair!"

Vic ran a hand through the tangled black stands and decided it wasn't worth the effort to fix. "Whatever. So, again, what happened after I left?"

Thor shrugged. "They love us. I apparently have a likable tendency, as Loki put it, and he can be quite charming as well."

Vic snorted, remembering how he'd told the Peacekeepers where she was, when she was obviously trying to avoid them. "Charming. Yeah, _that's_ exactly how I would describe him."

Will jumped into the conversation excitedly. "Long story short, I've got sponsors on a waiting list a mile long. You kids want something, just ask."

"Three 'get out of the Hunger Games free cards?' No? Well, it was worth a shot," Vic grumbled.

"Theoretically, if such an item did exist, would we be able to get at least one?" Thor asked hopefully.

Natalie shook her head. "Sorry. We can get you anything from medicine to a royal feast, but we can't get you out of the Games. Not all the wealth of the Capitol could do that for you."

The mood in the room dampened considerably for all, even Guin finally seeming to grasp the harsh reality of the boys' situation. "The Games will start soon, you should get ready," she almost whispered before picking up her usual cheeriness. "The clothes the Gamemakers want you to wear are in the dressers."

Vic and Thor returned to their rooms and found the lightweight, heat-trapping clothes waiting. Vic decided it was a safe bet that the temperatures would get much lower that anyone would be comfortable in. She grabbed a comb from the counter and swiped it through her tangled mess of hair a few times before pulling it into a ponytail.

She stared at her reflection thoughtfully. She didn't have the face of a military strategist, or the hardened look of a killer. She didn't appear experienced enough to make the decisions of a leader. But she didn't look like a pacifist either, like the sort of person who would let someone else win the Games. In all, she looked like a perfectly average 15 year old girl, who had perhaps just gotten out of school for the day. _That's good. The less they see, the better._

* * *

The ride to the arena with the tributes from the first four Districts was uncomfortable and tense, the four Careers eyeing Vic will a mixture of loathing and caution, Ivy in particular glaring at her with the intensity of a missile locked on a target. Vic tried to catch Xander and Brigit's attention, but they gazed rather pointedly at the floor and refused to meet her eyes.

She watched with interest when the Peacekeepers inserted the trackers into their arms. It was the exact same place every time, the right forearm. She could feel it just under her skin, and every so often it would blink red to show it was active.

In the end, nothing was said between the tributes, and they were sent off silently to their assigned capsules. Vic stepped inside hers without hesitation, and waited for it to rise to the surface. For the first time since she'd helped her mother and Katniss lead the rebellion, fear twisted in her stomach, and she hoped desperately that the hackers in 13 had successfully carried out their plan.

The capsule began its ascent without warning, sending Vic staggering for a moment. Just a few seconds after that, she rose from the floor of the arena, at the same time as her fellow tributes.

They all looked at their surroundings in awe. The Capitol had outdone themselves with this arena, featuring enormous mountain ranges ringing a forest of pine trees several miles wide, which in turn surrounded the grain field they stood in the center of. _It's a target,_ Vic laughed to herself. And at the bullseye was the Cornucopia, dazzling them with its wealth of supplies and weapons.

An announcer's voice rang out, echoing off the mountains of the arena. "Ladies and gentlemen, let the Seventy-sixth Hunger Games begin!"

The sixty seconds began, counting down agonizingly slowly. Vic scanned the other tributes, looking for her allies and anyone who would be a threat. She found Loki just a few spots to her right, but she couldn't see Thor. She would just have to hope that he'd run, and not be taken in by the temptation of the Cornucopia.

_It is certainly something to fight over, _she thought, looking at the bounty of food, supplies, and weapons. Food and supplies she could probably get from the 'miles of sponsors' Will had claimed they had, but weapons were a rarity, and she felt that they'd need something a bit more substantial that wit to survive.

The gong sounded, reverberating around them. The Careers surged forward as one, followed by a few other alliances foolhardy enough to take them on, while nearly everyone else turned to run. Everyone except Vic, who stood still and raised her arms above her head defensively.

The explosion shook the ground, the fireball that was the Cornucopia giving off enough heat to melt a glacier. None of the Careers had gotten close enough to be hurt, and stopped just short of running into the flame. Before they had recovered from the shock, the spoils of the Cornucopia fell back to the ground, ruined and on fire.

The tributes tried, and mostly succeeded, in dodging the twisted shrapnel of metal that many of the weapons had become, as well as the miniature fireballs of food. Out of the corner of her eye, Vic saw a boy she thought may have been from District 9 whose hair had caught fire. A knife nearly impaled her, but she moved to the side so it fell harmlessly to the ground.

Once things had stopped falling, Vic looked around. None of the food was edible, and almost everything except the metal weapons had been burnt beyond use. The weapons were damaged for the most part, but to her complete amazement, Vic saw an intact war hammer just a bit to her left. She grabbed it and the knife before making her way to the the forest, her speed severely hampered by the necessity to drag the hammer that was as heavy as the mace she had trouble with the day before.

An acrid smell was the first indication she had of the disaster that was unintentionally caused by setting off an explosion in a field of grain. She threw a glance over her shoulder to find flames licking up from various places in the field. The other tributes had already come to realize that nothing from the Cornucopia was worth salvaging, and were racing to the forest like she was. A steady wind picked up, doubtlessly sent by the Gamemakers, and the flames grew, chasing down the tributes.

Vic turned her attention back to the forest. The green plants there would be harder to catch fire than the grain, so she just had to outrun the fire for fifty more feet. She didn't risk glancing behind her and slowing herself down, but she knew the fires were getting worse because the low crackle had quickly become a roar mixed with screams. A cannon sounded, encouraging Vic to run just a little faster into the relatively damp forest.

Vic didn't stop until she was a good ten yards past the tree line. Once she felt safe enough to stop, she leaned against a tree, panting hard. A crunch of pine needles behind her caused Vic to turn, knife raised in defense.

Loki froze, hands in the air to show Vic he was unarmed. Recognition took hold after a moment, and she relaxed enough to lower the knife. "We need to find your brother and get out of here. I don't know if the fire will come into the forest or not."

A crashing sound from the direction of the grain field caught their attention, and Loki scrambled behind Vic. Thor burst into view from a clump of bushes, out of breath, but not injured aside from having slightly singed hair, much like the Careers who had rushed to the Cornucopia would have.

"Oh, don't tell me you tried to take the Cornucopia by yourself," Loki complained.

Thor glared at him. "I coulda done it if hadn't blown up. And, really, are you hiding behind a girl?"

"She's the one with the weapons!"

Thor's eyes lit up when he realized what weapons Vic had. "Perfect!" he said, snatching the hammer from her.

Vic rolled her eyes. "You're welcome. We need to be far away from here before nightfall so we can sleep without worrying the fire will catch up. Come on!" She waved for them to follow her deeper into the woods.

* * *

Zach ran full speed into the forest, plants clawing angrily at him until he came to a stop. He dropped the heavy objects that had slowed him down, and leaned against a tree. He'd stayed behind just a bit longer than he should have, trying to find things his alliance could use, and the smoke in his lungs weighed more than the pile of weapons at his feet.

"Well, someone looks pleased with himself," a light, teasing voice rang out. Zach snapped to a state of alertness, brown eyes quickly finding Ashley above him, hanging upside down from a thick branch like a bat.

"Hello, Ash. Come on down, let's go find the other Careers."

She grabbed the branch and kicked her legs all the way over, dropping neatly to the ground in front of him. "One of these for me?" she asked hopefully, eyeing the weapons Zach had found.

In response, he picked up a compound bow and held it out to her. It had somehow held together through the explosion, as well as the corresponding metal quiver, with arrows hot to the touch, but not melted. Ashley pulled on the metal string, testing the weight. "Not too bad. I usually like the wooden ones, but if metal's the only thing that survived the fire, it'll do."

Her eyes flicked to Zach, who was still wheezing from the smoke. "Sorry, Zach. You're the weakest." She whipped an arrow out of the quiver and before he had time to blink shot it through his chest. "Thanks for the weapons," she trilled after the cannon faded.

She inspected the weapons he'd found, four shuriken, a few small knives, a double edged sword, and a single katana. They weren't as twisted as some she'd seen raining on the field, and didn't snap in half when she picked them up. Ashely pulled the arrows out of her quiver, finding the shuriken to be the perfect fit for the circular quiver. She put the arrows back on top of the shuriken, leaving behind the one she'd shot Zach with since she couldn't get it out of the tree.

She slid the sword into the quiver and slung it over her shoulder. It was a tight fit with everything she'd put in it, and it weighed her down, but she could still draw and shoot unimpeded, so she didn't complain. She snatched three of the small knives and walked off, leaving the rest to be melted by the spreading fire.

* * *

Linda kept a tight grip on Penelope and Phillip, forcing the two smaller tributes to keep pace with her. They'd spent precious time in the burning field, looking for Rebecca, but when the wind picked up, Linda had made the decision to escape alive with the two she had found. So far, the fire hadn't gone beyond the field, but it was only a matter of time before it got into the forest, and she wanted to be as far from it as she could.

A rustle in the bushes nearby stopped her maniac progression deeper into the forest. She pushed the younger children behind her, turning towards the sound. The rustling increased in volume until the girl from 9 and Rebecca stepped into their small clearing. Rebecca was clearly hurt, keeping pressure of her left leg as much as possible. Linda's hazel eyes flicked hesitantly between the two, before grabbing Rebecca by the wrist and pulling her back.

"What do you want?" she demanded of the girl.

In response, she held out a partially melted piece of metal, probably once part of a sword since one edge was razor sharp. Linda pushed the younger ones further behind her and took a step back, eyes as wide as saucers. The girl from 9 shook her head and lowered the shrapnel. "No, I want to join you. Henry's dead, and I don't want to be alone in here. Please, let me help you. You don't have any weapons, or experience, right? What happens when a mutt comes?"

Rebecca tugged Linda's arm to catch her attention. "Bella got me out from under a bunch of stuff from the explosion. She could have let me die in the fire, but she didn't."

Linda glanced back at Bella, eyes saying she didn't trust her, but she nodded anyways. "Okay. We need to go, the other tributes could be right behind us."

"Hey, don't Penelope and I get a say in this? We're part of the alliance too!" Phillip protested.

Linda groaned inwardly at the loss of time, but decided it would be quicker to humor him. "Fine, what would you like to say?"

He turned his large green eyes to Bella, without a trace of distrust or fear. "Thanks for finding Becca. Is it time to go now?"

Bella nodded, a smile creeping across her face, then set off in the direction Linda had been leading them. Penelope wrapped an arm around Rebecca so she didn't have to put as much weight on her leg, and they set off as fast as they could after her.

* * *

Andrew jumped at the sound of pine needles crunching beneath two pairs of feet. He whirled around to see Amanda and Alice, and instantly relaxed. "There you are. I was worried when I heard the cannons..." His voice trailed off when he saw the blood dripping from between Alice's fingers pressed to her side.

She gave him a humorless smile. "It's nothing, just a little scratch. Lot better than being stuck out there. Although, I suppose it will ruin my manicure," she tried to joke, but the pain in her voice was far too evident to allow her allies to believe she was actually okay.

"Sit," Amanda ordered, pushing Alice gently to the ground against a tree and pried her blood soaked hand away. Slowly, with great concentration, she began pulling tiny shards of metal out of the cut. Alice winced, but kept quiet.

"Andrew, let me know if you see any other tributes, or if the fire seems to be getting closer," Amanda instructed without looking up to see if he compiled. She fished the last piece of metal out, and then seemed at a loss for how to stop the blood. Andrew held out a small plant with clusters of little white flowers to her. "Andrew, now is _really_ not the time."

"No, it's yarrow. Look, the leaves help with blood clotting." He crumbled a few leaves in his hand and pressed them to Alice's wound. She held her hand over the leaves and struggled to her feet, despite Amanda's protests.

"We can't stay here, the fire will come into the forest soon. I'm fine. Really. We need to go."

Amanda and Andrew nodded their consent and the trio headed further away from the fire. "Hey, Amanda, you remember what you said about now not being the right time? It's not now anymore."

"Shut up," she said with a grin, punching him lightly on the shoulder.

* * *

The light shone through the pine needles, bouncing off them and making the world look a lush shade of green. It was beautiful, but Brigit couldn't appreciate it with the worry clawing at her. There had been two cannons and she had two allies, neither of which she could see from her position at the Cornucopia. So she had run, hoping that they would find her.

A light touch on her shoulder woke her from her paranoia. She spun around, sword swinging in a barely controlled arc. Xander jumped backwards out of the reach of the blade. "Turning on me that early, huh?" he asked with a laugh. Brigit lowered the sword, her face turning bright red.

"Sorry. Have you seen Daniel?"

Xander shook his head. "No, we need to find him."

A rough, scratchy voice from the direction of the fire startled them. "Find who?" Brigit didn't think twice before dropping the sword and gathering the younger boy into a hug. She and Daniel had become fast friends in the short time they'd had together in the Capitol. Daniel squirmed away from her, coughing hard.

"What's wrong?" Brigit asked, inspecting him as he put a little more distance between them in case she tried to hug him again.

"My lungs feel like they're on fire." He took a deep breath, wincing as he did. "I can't talk much."

"Did you breath in the smoke?" Xander asked, and Daniel nodded in reply. The motion made the world around him spin. He put his hand out to a tree to keep from falling over.

"The fire's moving really fast, I was just barely staying ahead of it. You need to go further in."

Brigit wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "I think you mean 'we.'"

Daniel looked up at her, surprise showing on his face. "I can't move fast like this. Aren't you going to leave me?"

Xander rolled his eyes. "I think you misunderstand the term 'ally.' We keep each other alive. That's the point of staying in a group. I can hear the fire now, we probably need to go." He turned and headed away from the Cornucopia, Brigit and Daniel following behind.

* * *

Loki stopped walking suddenly, and Vic plowed into him. "Why'd you stop?" she complained, and he shushed her.

"Hear that?"

Vic was about to respond no, she couldn't hear anything over his paranoia, when she thought it might be best to actually listen. Sure enough, she could hear something, a sound that sent shivers crawling down her spine.

"What's that buzzing?" Thor asked.

Vic's face drained of all its color and she turned back towards the fire, running as fast as her legs would allow.

"No, seriously, what is that?"

"They look like tracker jackers," Loki responded, finally catching sight of the swarm emerging from a hive above them. "Keep up!" he shouted, running in the same direction Vic had gone.

Vic didn't stop running until she was right on the edge of the inferno. The fire had come further into the forest, and the flames licked at their faces, but the large wasp-like mutts didn't come closer than 10 feet to the fire.

"They hate heat," Vic shouted over the roar of the fire and the buzzing of the tracker jackers.

"So what now? You've gotten us trapped between a blazing fire that is advancing on us, and a bunch of hallucination inducing bugs that are locked on to our position and will leave us as easy prey for the other tributes. This is a _brilliant_ plan, Vic, truly _genius_," Loki growled sarcastically.

"It was an instinctual reaction, okay? I never said you had to follow me. Now, seriously, how do we get past them?" They had to take several steps forward because the fire was advancing, but the bugs seemed to be getting braver, and every now and again one would break off from the swam to fly a bit closer to their prey.

"How the hell am I supposed to-"

Thor's voice broke into their argument. "Do you think he's trapped by the tracker jackers too?"

Vic and Loki both turned the death glares they'd been giving each other to him. "Who, and why should we care?" Loki snarled.

Thor pointed to the hazy outline of a person a stone's throw from them. "Well, he's not panicking. Maybe he knows something about the trackers that we don't."

"Worth a try," Vic said, already walking towards the person.

Loki stepped in front of her. "Oh, no you don't. You got us into this mess, from here on out I'm calling the shots."

She gave him an expectant look. "And, you've decided..." she trailed off, and motioned that he should finish the sentence.

He thought for a second, then deflated. "... that we should find out why whoever that is isn't running, and hope they don't kill us." He matched Vic's smug grin with a scowl and wiped away the sweat that was dripping into his eyes.

They walked just outside the edge of the fire, a few tongues of flame occasionally jumping out at them. Far more worrying was the fact that the entire swarm of tracker jackers had definitely locked onto them, as they flew right alongside the trio, no matter how fast they ran. The heat wouldn't keep them out forever, and Loki tried to block the horrible images he'd seen of tributes killed by tracker jackers from his mind. Even the ones who survived the stings eventually went insane.

The haze from the heat made it hard to see, but before they got within 20 feet of the other tribute they could tell that something was wrong. He was standing straight against a tree, but his head lolled over, like he had fallen asleep on his feet. He made no effort to move away from the fire, or gave any indication that he noticed it at all.

When they got a bit closer they could easily see the problem, but Vic was the first to say it out loud. "He's dead."

Loki edged closer, scanning the surrounding area for signs of who might have killed him. "It's the boy from 4."

"Someone already killed a Career? Maybe the others are tougher than we thought," Thor said.

"There's an arrow. It was probably Ashely," Vic said, kneeling down to look at the weapons scattered on the ground. "Too bad these won't work on a bunch of bugs."

"You mean the girl from 2. The one with the bow," Thor corrected her.

"That's what I just said," Vic responded.

There was a burst of pain in Loki's left arm, but he moved further into the relatively safe area of heat and didn't say anything. The tracker jacker poison wouldn't have a major effect for a minute or so, long enough to get of danger.

"No, you used her name," Thor argued. "Don't use their names, you'll get sentimental."

"Whatever." Vic put the katana and the remaining knives in her belt. She had decided that was all that was there when she noticed a gleam from under Zach's foot. She moved it aside and picked up the shuriken that was pressed into the ground. She stood up and looked around, noting that the tracker jackers were edging into their space, as was the fire. "Ideas? Anyone?"

"They've been staying away because of the fire, right? Why don't we just take it with us?" Loki asked. He picked up a fallen tree branch and held it in the fire. The dry, brittle needles caught fire instantly, but the sap in the branch burned slower. He waved it around near the bugs and they flew away, only to regroup when he lowered the branch.

"Good idea!" Vic spotted two more branches a little further from the fire. "Could you scatter them again?"

Loki waved the branch through the tracker jackers again and they dispersed long enough for Vic to dart away from the fire and grab the branches. She swung them through the fire, and they sparked to life. Thor took one and they held the branches out to the bugs. The mutts stayed further back this time, wary of the moving flames.

"Come on! If we can get to some type of water they'll stop tracking us," Vic said, edging away from the relative safety of the fire. Thor and Loki followed closely, keeping the burning branches between themselves and the bugs. Now that they were away from the intense heat of the forest fire, the bugs attacked viciously. The small fires they had would only beat them back for a second before they came again. They finally managed to get the bugs behind them and ran, abandoning the makeshift torches.

Loki didn't know how far or how long they ran, only that by the time they reached the river he was sure they were all about to collapse. They didn't even know they had found a river until Vic ran straight off the edge of the riverbank and fell into it. It was fairly deep, but not moving fast enough to be dangerous.

She popped to the surface fifteen feet away in time to see the other two jump in after her. The tracker jackers flew away, confused by the disappearance of their prey. The trio swam to the riverbank, exhausted but alive. Their skin was nearly roasted in some places, and was red and raw underneath, but the water helped significantly. Vic could have stayed in the cool water forever, but eventually climbed out and joined her allies on the soft grass.

"Finally, I think we were about due for some good luck," Thor said with a grin.

"Don't be stupid, it's probably got piranhas," Loki retorted, but without his usual bitterness. Vic almost thought he'd intended it to be a joke until she noticed the glazed look in his eyes.

He was clutching his left arm so tightly his fingers were turning white. Vic pulled his hand away gently. His green eyes snapped towards her, suddenly wild. _He must have been stung a while before, it's already swollen._ "It's just one, you should be fine. Still, Thor, don't let him near any weapons for the next hour, just in case." _Less than fifteen minutes in and we're having problems. How are we going to survive three days of this?_


	5. Murderous Woodland Creatures

Alex was beginning to consider jumping down and taking on the mutt with his bare hands just to make it stop howling when an arrow sprouted from the back of it's head, killing it instantly. "Well, never thought I'd see you two getting treed by a mutt." Ashely called teasingly, heading towards them with her bow in hand. "Did you forget your weapons?"

Ivy slipped down the tree, landing much lighter than Alex's ungraceful fall. "You mean aside from our good looks?" She waited, but Ashely didn't seem to understand the joke. "Yeah, we got nothin'."

Alex gave the wolf a kick to make himself feel superior, and Ashely rolled her eyes. "Well, lucky for you, I come bearing gifts." She swung her quiver off her shoulder and pulled the sword free.

She held it out to Alex, who snatched it with a grin. "Nice. How'd you manage to find this in all that wreckage?"

Ashely shrugged and flipped her quiver over, sending the arrows and shuriken flying. She replaced the arrows while Ivy picked up the shuriken. "Where's Zach?" Ivy asked quietly.

"You mean 4? I wouldn't know. But we can't wait around for him. There were two cannons, so he might not be coming anyways." Ashely stood up, slinging her quiver back over her shoulder. "We don't have any supplies, water, or food, so that has to be our first priority. Our second has to be hunting the rebel Career pack. We can't let them think they own the arena. Because the bloodbath didn't happen, there are 19 other tributes in this arena, but there will be a maximum of 16 before we go to sleep tonight."

Ivy regarded her quietly. "Yeah. Yeah, you're absolutely right," she whispered softly so Ashely couldn't hear.

* * *

The poison wasn't nearly as strong as Vic was concerned it might be. Loki didn't turn on them or mistake them for mutts, but it was obvious he wasn't seeing what they were seeing, which for the moment was absolutely nothing. Occasionally he would flinch away from something, although for the most part he sat very still, his attention riveted on something in the distance which didn't actually appear to be there.

No matter what they tried, he wouldn't respond to either of them, so after several minutes of trying to get him moving, Thor and Vic gave up and got ready to stay by the river for a while. Unfortunately, as Thor soon found out, there were, in fact, piranhas in the river, and they were very displeased by the human's intrusion into their territory.

"I told you it was asking for trouble to go swimming when you didn't have to," Vic said with a barely concealed smile.

Thor glared at her from across the bundle of sticks she was attempting to light. "Yes, I noticed that," he grumbled. "I have about a dozen teeth marks to prove it."

"Lucky for you it was just one piranha," she teased.

Thor snorted. "Yeah. Lucky. You try getting bit by one of these."

"Nice of you to offer, but I'm smart enough to avoid things that want to eat me." A wisp of smoke rose from the wood, and as she blew on it the sparks caught. Soon there was a small fire beside the riverbank, trailing a thin white smoke that Vic hoped was light enough to not be noticed amongst the smoke from the forest fire.

Vic quickly checked over their stock of weapons arrayed around the fire, then lay back on the cool grass and closed her eyes. It was strange to say, but she felt safe for the first time in a while. Sure, she was in the arena, but at least she wasn't in the Capitol. Sure, she was trusting her life to a Career, but he wasn't a Peacekeeper. And, sure, she was being filmed and meticulously examined by people who hated her more than anyone else in Panam, but they couldn't do anything that she wasn't already expecting and had planned for. All in all, this quiet little section of the arena protected her from the cold realities she knew would be coming soon, and she dearly wished that she could hold onto this peaceful moment forever.

True to par, as soon as she made the wish a low growl from the edge of the forest snapped her out of her daydream. She got up quickly and grabbed her katana. Thor was already on his feet with his hammer pointed in the direction of the growl.

It would have been impossible to miss the wolf prowling towards them. It was half the size of a bear, and rippling muscles could be seen underneath its matted fur. Its eyes seemed colorless, just reflecting light from the sun, but its stance and growl spoke of years of mistreatment at the hands of humans, and it was more than ready for revenge. The mutt couldn't possibly have understood that the humans who raised it for the arena were different than the ones before it now.

It snarled, crouching low to the ground in preparation to pounce. Too late, Vic realized she should have used her shuriken to kill it before it got close. But she had picked up the wrong weapon, and the wolf charged.

It went for Thor first, slamming into him as he swung his hammer into the side of it's head. They collided at the same time, the impact sending Thor staggering backwards and the wolf howling. It shook itself and turned its merciless glare back to Thor, its lips pulled back so they could see its gleaming teeth.

Thor swung his hammer in a circle to gain momentum, more wary of the mutt than he had been before. The wolf attacked again, this time ducking under Thor's swing and knocking him down very close to the edge of the river. Its eyes glinted angrily and its growl grew louder as it prepared to kill.

Vic forced herself to get over her shock at the large creature's speed and rammed her katana in the wolf's side. It turned to her faster than she would have thought possible. In doing so, it pushed Thor into the river and sent the her sword spinning away, with brilliant red drops of blood glinting in the afternoon air. The wolf used the same attack on her that had caught Thor off guard, pinning her to the ground before she could so much as blink.

Vic closed her eyes and waited for the gnashing teeth at her throat, but they never came. Instead, the wolf collapsed, trapping her under a mess of fur and bone. She risked looking, and was astonished to find a knife buried between the wolf's eyes.

She scrambled out from underneath the mutt, looking around frantically for who had thrown the knife. The only person she could see was Loki. The tracker jacker sting seemed to have worn off, as he was standing and didn't have the same distant look in his eyes.

"We need to find who threw that knife, they could be hostile and-" Vic stopped when she saw that Loki was twirling a knife with a sinister smile on his face.

"Well, you found me."

"Uh, yeah. Nice shot." Before she could say anything else, Loki launched the knife at her. It just barely missed her neck. Vic took a step back nervously, and tripped over the mutt. She fell on her back, more vulnerable than anyone should ever be in the arena. He was advancing on her, and Vic felt more threatened by him than she did by the wolf.

Loki moved towards her slowly, like a cat would a mouse. Vic was defenseless, still feeling the ground behind her back, hoping against hope that she would be able to reach her katana. But instead of killing her then and there, Loki knelt down and pulled the knife from the mutt's skull.

He stood and offered his free hand to Vic. She hesitantly took it and let him help her to her feet, suspiciously eyeing the bloody knife he held.

A few yards away Thor climbed out of the river, still thinking there was a fight going on. When he noticed the wolf was dead his mood deflated. "Did I miss it?" He frowned upon noticing that Vic and Loki were holding hands. "What else did I miss?"

They yanked their hands away from each other, Vic blushing furiously and Loki wide eyed with horror. "Nothing," they said simultaneously, causing Vic to blush even harder.

Thor raised an eyebrow. "If you say so."

* * *

The trio had almost made it to the foot of the mountains by the time the artificial sun sunk below the horizon. Their area was strangely empty of tributes, but that may have been because they were all busy with the mutts. There were far more than there usually were so early in the Games. There were piranhas in another river and a small pond, which the trio discovered the hard way by jumping head first into the water to get away from humming swarms of tracker jackers. Vic quickly mastered killing the wolves with her single shuriken before they pounced.

She didn't miss, but she knew that if she did, Loki would follow up with a knife. For some reason he hadn't used that skill at all after saving her from the wolf. Why he had bothered to help her and then so blatantly threaten her still confused Vic, but she decided not to ask. There were some questions best left alone.

So far, the wolves only attacked them one at a time, but they didn't trust this luck to hold and were constantly scanning the forest for signs of a pack. There was a pack in the arena, Vic was more than willing to bet on that, but it hadn't gone after them yet.

The mutts also seemed to drive away any wildlife that might have provided food. There wasn't a single rabbit or deer in sight, although Vic thought she saw some kind of bird through the gaps in the trees.

Shortly after figuring out how to grab a piranha so it would let go without a fight, the trio heard the third cannon that day. Vic felt ill, and the feeling was only intensified by Thor's complaints that they weren't the ones to have killed them. He was eager to resume searching, sure that they would find some unfortunate tribute to put on his list of kills before dark.

Loki was quite a bit less enthusiastic. "Thor, if we were going to find someone, we would have by now. They're all hiding for the night. We should too, but we need to find something to eat first."

"Seriously, we haven't had a bite of food since we got to the arena. The mutts will be specifically designed so we can't get meat from them, and you haven't let us stop to look for edible plants," Vic complained.

Thor turned to them, exasperation written across his face. "Fine. We'll stop."

Loki sat down heavily against a tree and rubbed one of the many piranha bites he'd sustained from the day. The sting from the tracker jacker was probably affecting him more than he let on, but Vic knew he'd just deny it if she brought it up. Instead, she decided it would be fastest to get food from the most reliable source she knew- the Capitol's kitchens.

"Will said we had a lot of sponsors, right? Hey, Will, I don't suppose we can get any steak? Or salmon? I _really_ like salmon!" Vic yelled at the sky.

"They aren't just going to-" A beeping sound cut Loki off, and a second later a box floated down attached to a silver parachute.

"Yeah, you were saying?" Vic asked smugly, opening the box to reveal a platter of still-steaming fish. "Now, who's hungry?"

Neither Thor nor Loki noticed the paper she slipped out from under the plate and crumpled up behind her back. It was a picture of Vic at the Cornucopia with her hands raised to shield herself from the explosion, which was completely natural. The only problem was that the Cornucopia hadn't blown up yet.

* * *

After they finished eating, the artificial sun had disappeared completely, but the full moon on the dome of the arena provided ample light to see by. Loki and Vic finally convinced Thor to give up the search and settle in for the night after the Capitol anthem blared and the faces of the boys from 4 and 9 appeared in the sky, followed by the girl from 11, Cynthia. Vic fought the bile threatening to rise in her throat by digging her nails into a piranha bite on her arm. She wondered briefly how Cynthia and Henry had died, but dug her nails in harder so the pain would blot out her stray thoughts. It also provided a convenient excuse for the tears that she hurriedly wiped away.

The pine tree they selected to stay out of reach of the mutts wasn't nearly as cozy as the Capitol oak had been, as every inch was covered in either rough bark or prickly needles. Vic volunteered for first watch because she knew her thoughts wouldn't let her sleep for a while anyways.

The brothers reluctantly agreed. They still weren't sure they could trust her, but they were all tired and didn't feel like arguing over who would have to stay awake longer.

The hour that followed was so peaceful, Vic wouldn't have believed it was the arena if she hadn't been battling mutts all day. The wind whistled through the trees, but it didn't sound eerie, it sounded soothing. Somewhere above her, a night owl called softly, adding to the chorus of crickets below, and the moonlight created a silver mosaic on the forest floor.

It was the peacefulness that set her on edge, keeping her wide awake and alert. She would not be lulled into a false sense of security in this place ever again. Throughout the past year, she'd put her ear to enough closed doors to know that the arena was like a flytrap, offering tributes momentary relief from the terrors, but only so they would turn a blind eye to worse dangers.

Her granddad was like that too, in a way. He would often pretend to take an interest in her, and take her to the park, or to a play, and she would later find out she was being filmed having fun with him. She would always be mad, and swear to herself that she wouldn't buy into his act again, but she fell for it every time.

Maybe it was because she forgot, or, although she hated to admit it, even to herself, maybe it was because a part of her wished the kind words he told her, the offers of reconciliation and love, were true. But that small part of her kept getting crushed.

That inherently trusting nature might have been spared, if it hadn't been for all the betrayal she had seen in the year since she had come to the Capitol. Everything's perfect, see how wonderful Panam's president is, the people on the TV would say, and the worst part was that people in the Districts believed them.

They didn't know that Vic wasn't Victory, or that the crazy girl in the arena wasn't the small child they had watched grow up in the Capitol. They didn't know that after the few remaining rebels left the Capitol in defeat, Vic had been held captive in a place labeled as her home. They didn't know about the .05 mL of tracker jacker poison she received each morning in a syringe, nor did they know how she kicked and screamed and fought each time they came for her with the white gloves and the gleaming needle. They didn't know that her parents _hadn't_ died in a car crash, or that every time Snow saw her, he scowled because she looked just like her mother. They didn't know she loathed every second she spent under the cameras and spotlights with a Peacekeeper just outside the field of view with a gun loaded with more tracker jacker poison than she wanted to think about. They _couldn't_ know, so why did she still hate them for believing the lies?

A sound to her left startled Vic out of her pensive reflections. She looked around, fearful that a mutt had climbed the tree while she was distracted, and cursed her trusting nature for letting her feel calm in this place. Again. She relaxed when she realized it had just been Thor snoring, and only when she began to breath again did she realize that she'd stopped. Branches above her shifted, and she looked up to see a pair of bright green eyes.

"I'll take the next watch. Good luck sleeping over that," he whispered down to her.

Vic's eyes narrowed in suspicion. Thor was loud, but he wasn't loud enough to have woken Loki. "How long have you been up?"

There was silence for a few moments. Loki responded just as she was about to ask the question again. "I haven't slept."

Something in his voice said there was more to the story, so Vic waited for him to explain. When he didn't, she risked pressing further. "Why not?"

"Because I just don't want to, okay?" His respond was as sharp as the blade he threw down at her. It nicked her ear, and embedded itself in a branch just below her.

"You aren't going to scare me with that. I know you could kill me if you wanted, but you haven't. Now, if you aren't going to sleep, I am. Get one of us up in a few hours and get some rest, you can't be tired tomorrow if you want to stay alive." Vic leaned back against the trunk of the tree and closed her eyes.

"He won't go to sleep, you know," Thor said in an almost quiet tone. It was an impressive effort at a whisper for him.

"Are you going to tell me why not, or are you going to throw something at me too?" Vic's curiosity was instantly piqued by Thor's confirmation that there really was something wrong. "Wait, weren't you asleep a second ago?"

"You two woke me up."

"How is that even- okay, you know what, never mind, just spill." She reached over and poked his shoulder.

"Thor, don't you dare-"

"He won't go to sleep because of the nightmares."

"I hate you."

Vic looked between them, utterly confused. "Really? I'd take any dream, even a nightmare over this place."

"He's had them ever since our family took him in."

"_Shut up!_" Loki hissed between clenched teeth.

"Don't kid yourself, she'll find out eventually. I'm kind of surprised Flickerman didn't grill you about it in the interview."

"If you keep talking, I swear-"

"But he just kept asking you about the parade. I didn't know they let tributes design the costumes now."

"Wait, he said _what_ during the interview?"

"Do you want to hear about the interview or nightmares?"

"Nightmares." Vic sat up expectantly, eyes glistening in the moonlight. Her icy met Thor's electric blue and silently begged for the story.

"I hate you both."

"Loki's mom died when he was little. No one ever told us how, but after that his dad started drinking. When he was drunk, he turned violent and hit him. And he was drunk _a lot_. Then when he was eight there was a mining accident that killed his dad, so they sent him to the orphanage for District 12. But there were too many kids there after the accident, and they would have to start turning them away. Whoever ran the orphanage got desperate and started contacting the previous Victors. One of them was our dad, and he said sure, why not? The nightmares are always the same, that he's still with his dad from District 12 and that he hurts him. Every night, for the eight years he was with us, and probably even before then."

Vic looked upwards to see Loki curled up against the tree, pretending he couldn't hear them. "Loki, I'm sorry, I didn't know-"

"Would you just _shut up_? I'm not going to be one of those kids who goes into the Games with some pathetic sob story so people will sponsor them. I'm not that _weak_, and anyways Haymitch won't give me anything even if I do get sponsors."

Vic glanced over at Thor. "Any idea what he's talking about this time?"

"Actually, no."

Loki sighed frustratedly. "I pushed him down when he was too drunk to see straight. After the Peacekeepers took Vic during your interview, no one else was listening, and he said I'd regret it. And now the Cornucopia is gone so we can't steal stuff from the Careers, and we have to get pretty much everything from sponsors. So, yeah, I'm regretting it."

Vic grabbed the branch above her and moved up so she was sitting by Loki. "It's okay, we'll work it out. We'll make it."

"They aren't coming, you know." Loki's voice held as much disappointment and bitterness as hers held hope.

"We'll see," she whispered to herself.

A cannon sounded, breaking the silence and startling a flock of birds from a nearby tree. Vic sat to full attention, but they were still the only ones in the immediate area. She leaned back against the tree, feeling the weight of another failure settle over her, and the anxiety of have to wait another day to find out who she had failed. The birds flew across the moon, casting a shadow over the forest and Vic's thoughts.

* * *

Sunlight filtered through the pine needles, giving everything in the forest a slight green tinge. Vic blinked awake, the light hitting her eyes at just the wrong angle. For one blissful second, she thought she had fulfilled her dreams of escape from the Capitol. Then she remembered the arena, the explosion, the wolves. She was far from safe, and just as much in the Capitol's possession as ever.

A small black bird landed on a branch just above her and chirped a short tune. Vic tilted her head and watched it for a while. "Now, what did either of us do to deserve getting in here?" she asked the bird. It tweeted, almost as if in response to her, then jumped down to a closer branch.

Vic reached up to it to see if it would come closer when it flew at her, screeching like a banshee.

She swatted it away, but that only seemed to anger the bird and it came back, but this time its jet black feathers were alight with fire. Vic dropped to a branch below and the bird flew right over her head and into the thick trunk of the tree. It fell to the ground and stayed there, its neck twisted at a horrible angle.

Vic climbed down as quickly as she dared, only giving the area a precursory glance for stray mutts and tributes. She knelt down next to the bird and carefully picked it up by one of the wings. The feathers were still smoking, but otherwise the bird seemed perfectly normal.

While Vic was examining the bird, another dropped from the sky, a knife sticking out of its chest. "Good morning," Vic called, not bothering to turn around.

"Tell me that wasn't what it looked like," Loki responded, dropping to the ground behind her.

Vic turned around and held up the bird that had attacked her. "You mean a phoenix? I think so."

"Are they meant for us?"

"You mean because of the parade? Probably. It got Kitty in quite a bit of trouble." When she realized Loki didn't know what she was talking about, Vic heaved a sigh. "Oh, come on. Girl on fire gets herself burned? Mockingjay gets trapped with a bunch of jabberjays screaming like people she cares about? You really think us getting attacked by flaming black birds is a coincidence?"

"I guess not." He paused and looked at her nervously. "Think they'll come back?"

Before Vic could reply, the forest was plunged into darkness with a sound like a thousand claws on a thousand chalkboards, the sun completely blotted out by a black writhing mass. It drew closer to them and it became obvious that it was a flock of the little black birds. Vic gasped when she realized they were the same birds from the night before. They swirled closer, screeching even louder as they did. In seconds they were weaving between the trees, making the air thick with feathers and darker than night.

Vic felt like she was underwater, except water didn't claw her face or get tangled in her hair. She reached up to bat them away, only to be pecked more for her effort. The mass of darkness pressed in on her, slowly forcing her first to her knees, then to curl into a ball and wait for the inferno she knew would come.

And come it did. Time seemed to slow down as one of the flock ignited. The bird's crisp feathers caught fire faster than the wheat had. In seconds it spread from one bird to another, the flames racing through the flock like kindling. Then, just as quickly as it had started, the fire stopped, replaced by a sharp coldness and a howling wind more terrifying than the screams of the phoenix.

Vic blinked her eyes open, surprised to find them practically frozen together. She stood up slowly, ice breaking around her with the movement. The burnt trees were coated in a thin layer of ice, and snow drifted down slowly, mixed with ashes from the birds. The birds themselves were dead, frozen solid in mid-flight, and now littered the forest floor.

Thor dropped to the ground, breaking several wings upon landing. "Exactly what was that?"

Loki answered, standing from where the birds had forced him down as well. "Literally? I think it was a blizzard."

"And not literally?"

"A message."

Vic's eyes swept through the trees, noting several glassy knots, breaks in the otherwise perfect grain of the ancient trees. "Message received," she whispered to the nearest.

* * *

Coriolanus Snow once again found himself meeting his granddaughter's hard, cold eyes filled with all the malice she'd inherited from him as she glared at the camera. "Message received," her voice drifted through the speakers.

He tore his eyes away from that screen and back to the one being broadcast throughout Panam. This one featured the alliance the tributes had taken to calling Triple A. The older girl from 7 leaned against a tree with her hand on her still slightly bleeding side and watched her District partner and the girl from 10 relaxing in a picturesque meadow in a valley between the mountains and the forest. It was perfect. He'd just have to fix that.

He pressed a small button below the screen and just out of their sight, a section of wall slid into the side of the mountain, releasing a pack of wolves not 50 feet from the trio. He muted the sound from that area as the screams started and turned his attention back to the rebels.

The two boys were arguing about where to go from there while Vic scanned the area, her eyes lingering on the cameras, daring him to try something else. Apparently she had received the wrong message.

_No_, he wanted to shout. _I didn't mean I can kill you whenever I want. I know that's what you think my message was. I meant I won't. I meant I'd keep you safe. That's what the blizzard was for._

He chuckled humorlessly when he realized what he'd said. _You'd kill me if you I told you that. You've always wanted me to leave you alone, even if I only offer help. Why can't you just be my Victory? Be my little girl. Let me protect you._

Her icy eyes lingered again on a camera. They looked hurt now. She wasn't as angry, but she stared hard at the camera, betrayal etched all over her face. It was a look he knew well, and one that killed him all over again each time.

_What would you say? If it was just us? What would you want me to say? What can I do to make you be mine? I didn't want this for us. I wanted you to be that little girl who sipped tea with me on the hottest day in July. I wanted the small child who fell asleep on my shoulder when we watched movies too late at night. What did you do to the angel who woke me up every morning with a rose from the garden? She would cry whenever a tribute died. If you were still her I might have given up and let the rebels win. Because she said no more Games, granddaddy. No more Games, please, granddaddy?_

_I'd have done whatever you wanted. Anything you asked for. What happened to that little girl, Victory? What happened to my granddaughter? Why won't you just let me be your grandfather?_

The 16 year old girl on screen wrenched her eyes away from the camera. "The mountains. There are too many mutts in the forest. We need to get out of here."

The Career began to argue with her. "But there won't be as many tributes in the mountains. We need to-" The sound of a cannon cut him off.

Snow flicked his eyes to the other screen. The younger girl screamed silently, the older keeping both arms wrapped around her to keep her in the tree they'd hastily climbed. She yelled for the boy, arms outstretched, but she was too late. She sobbed into the older girl's clothes, unable to look at the horrible scene below. The older girl kicked a wolf that tried to jump up to them, and it fell with a whimper. It scampered off, the other wolves reluctantly following until the girls were alone. Still she cried. It seemed so surreal without sound. To Snow, it was like it never happened.

"Don't worry about that. Let's just not be the next cannon, okay?" Vic turned and headed towards the imposing mountains in the distance, the brothers following quickly.

_It's because you grew up. You'll never be a little girl again. I broke you, didn't I?_ Snow mused sadly. He thought back to all the times like today when he'd handled having a little girl so very wrong, like the time she asked for a puppy, and he'd presented her with a Rottweiler that had sent her running. He'd kept it on a chain and muzzle afterwards, and when it stopped growling she'd come to care for it, brushing its fur and singing songs to it. But such an animal wasn't meant to be chained, and it had died.

When she discovered it was gone she had asked him if it went to live with its mother in the Districts. He told her no, it was dead, and caused her tears once again. He'd told her it was good to know such things. It meant she was growing up. But now she was grown, and he wanted his little girl again.

He turned back to the Head Gamemaker. "Give those two girls a break for a minute then send the wolves back. If anyone comes near Victory, kill them."

Heimdall nodded slightly. "Of course. But what about the ones already with her?"

Snow paused. It was a question he'd considered time and time again. "If you can do it without hurting her, then kill them too, before they harm my granddaughter." He walked out of the control room without another glance at the screens.


	6. The Mountains

Ashley head jerked up when she heard the cannon, distracting her from the task of prying a piranha from Alex's arm. He grunted in protest. "Ash!"

"Sorry," she muttered, rolling her eyes and gripping the fish by the jaw more firmly. It flopped around a bit more but eventually gave up. Ashley threw it to the ground and stepped on it. The sound of bones cracking made her feel somewhat less frustrated at their lack of progress. The Careers hadn't killed anyone since they had tracked down the District 11 tributes. The girl's cannon alerted the boy, who they had chased for over a hour until he tripped. One slash from Alex's sword brought down the fourth tribute of the Games.

And now someone out there was killing tributes without their permission. There was no doubt in Ashley's mind that the rebel Careers were behind it, and strengthened her resolve to kill them. No one would make a fool of her at her own game.

Ivy waved from the crest of a hill where she had gone to scout ahead. "You guys are gonna love me! Get up here!" she shouted in her high pitched voice that surely caused the Capitol viewers to cringe with every word.

Ashley and Alex trudged up to meet their companion, both secretly annoyed by her never ending supply of peppiness. No one could possible be that happy and high spirited in the Games.

Nevertheless, her find was an excellent one. A large patch of half burnt forest was coated in snow that was just starting to melt, but the tiny rivulets of water hadn't yet obscured the three sets of footprints that led to the mountains.

"I'd bet the Hunger Games those are the rebel Career's tracks," Alex said with a smirk.

"Let's go!" Ashely called back to them, already running.

-a

Vic threw an apple down at Thor's head from her perch in the leafy shade of the first fruit tree they'd found.

"Hey!" he yelled when it made hard contact. "That's not fair, I can't even see you!"

Vic just giggled and took a bite of the juicy red apple in her hand. After nearly a day with nothing but the meal from the sponsors, it tasted better than anything she'd ever been treated to in the Capitol.

Beside her, Loki snickered and threw another apple at Thor. "How long do you think it'll take him to realize we're in the only apple tree in the arena?" he whispered to Vic.

"Hopefully long enough for us to eat all the apples," she responded with her usual crazed grin, taking another bite.

The last apple Loki had thrown finally alerted Thor to their hiding place, and for what must have been a half hour, but felt far too short to Vic, everything was perfect again. The tree provided food and an advantage should they be attacked, and they were situated at the base of the mountain range, which they could begin climbing at their leisure. As she swung her legs lazily above the forest floor, she allowed herself to imagine that she had actually escaped. The Games were just a bad dream she'd recently awoken from. No one was seeking her blood, or plotting her murder. She was safe.

Once again, the instant Vic relaxed, catastrophe struck. A small golden ball of fuzz crawled out of a hole in the tree. It chattered at Vic, swishing its beautifully fluffy tail in the air. She smiled at the playful antics of the little thing. "Do you want some, too?" she asked it, holding out an apple she'd already taken several bites of.

The squirrel sniffed at the offering, and seemed to waver between eating it and scampering off. In the end, it clambered on top of the apple and made its way slowly up Vic's arm. "Hey, whatcha doing, little guy?" Vic asked, moving her other hand to brush it off. As soon as she touched it, the squirrel's eyes flashed, and it opened its mouth to reveal the sharp teeth of a carnivore.

Vic's eyes widened in surprise. She threw the squirrel from her arm, falling backwards as she did. Her fall to the ground was slowed by several painful impacts with branches, and she reached the bottom unscathed aside from new cuts and bruises joining the ones she'd picked up the day before. _Note to self: stop conversing with murderously adorable woodland creatures!_

The squirrel jumped to the ground in front of her, landing on its feet and hissing with all its fur on end. As much as she wanted to cuddle the adorable puffball, Vic was not keen on the idea of death by squirrel.

Her hand flew to her hip where she usually kept her shuriken, but it wasn't there. A glimmer at the base of the tree caught her attention. She had dropped it when she fell, and now the squirrel was between her and it. _Stop being a baby and step on the thing! _she chastised herself.

Vic took a tentative step towards the squirrel. In response, it arched its back and yowled like a tomcat before pouncing. It dropped halfway through its flight, skewered by a now very familiar knife.

"I can take care of myself, you know!" Vic yelled indignantly.

She looked up to find green eyes twinkling mischievously at her. "Sure looked like it from here," their owner replied sarcastically. Loki bit into an apple with an infuriating smirk Vic wanted to smack off his face.

"Shut up," she growled. She picked up her shuriken and the knife and pulled herself on the lowest branch.

An apple thudding to the ground nearby distracted her from climbing onto the second. She tilted her head back to see Thor staring at his brother in slack-jawed surprise, his hand still curved as if he hadn't noticed the apple was no longer there.

"Since when can _you_ throw knives?" he asked incredulously.

Loki shrugged nonchalantly. "Well, you never put them away when you were done practicing. Did you think fairies did that?"

Thor blinked a few times. "But, you're _really_ good."

Loki nodded slowly, as if Thor shouldn't be surprised by that fact. "Yes. Yes, I am really good."

Vic resumed her climb, making up her mind to ignore their conversation. After all, there was uneaten and inviting food directly above her.

"You knew about this!" The accusatory roar made Vic pause again and look up.

"Me?"

"Yes." Thor glared at her, daring her to deny it.

"Yep." Vic grabbed a branch just to her left and used it to pull herself up another half foot.

"And you didn't tell me?!"

"Nope." Another half foot, and a low hanging apple came into reach. Vic yanked it off the branch and settled in where she was.

"Why not?"

"Wasn't relevant," Vic replied around a mouthful of fruit.

"Wasn't rele- oh, forget it." Thor dropped to the ground noisily.

"Where ya going?" Vic called after him, still chewing her hard-earned prize.

"Up," he replied without looking back.

Vic and Loki exchanged a glance. Neither wanted to leave the security of the apple tree, but they were far more hesitant to stay behind with one another while Thor went ahead. If nothing else, the older boy's presence kept them from going at each other's throats. Without a word they jumped down and raced after him to the mountains that now towered above them.

-a

Haymitch impatiently watched the screen the mentors were gathered around. Aside from when the littles were being particularly adorable and a few scenes where the rebel Careers were doing something particularly interesting such as their first fight with a wolf, he hadn't seen his tributes since the Cornucopia exploded. Most of the air time went to the other two Capitol favorites, the Careers and the affectionally named Triple A, which was pretty much out of the Game with one dead and the other two stuck in a tree with wolves nipping at their heels.

The few glimpses he got of the District 12 tributes were hardly enough to gauge their conditions, though Rebecca was clearly limping. Loki hadn't looked injured, but there was certainly something wrong since he didn't react at all when the wolf had first appeared. Messing with Vic was certainly a crowd pleaser, but their lack of air time kept the number of sponsors down.

The District 1 mentors were similarly displeased. Vic and Thor's wild popularity in the Capitol kept their coffers full despite lack of appearances, but if the tributes did need something, they would never know about it. Records showed that a gift was sent to their part of the arena, but it must have been a glitch since no gifts had as of yet been sent by any of the mentors. District 1 had the sponsors, but were unable to use them, while the other Districts knew exactly what their Tributes needed, food for the most part, but didn't have the sponsors.

Haymitch turned from the sight of the District 6 boy trying in vain to cheer his younger allies by juggling pinecones and ending by attempting to catch them in his mouth. The girl looked on the verge of tears and the boy wasn't far behind. Apparently they'd witnessed the Careers' attack on 11 and had lost all hope of survival, although Haymitch had learned that information secondhand. The only mentor for 12 had been near blackout drunk at that point in the Games.

The mentors for 11 had withdrawn sullenly from the group of mentors riveted to the live feed of the Games. Haymitch considered joining them, but another swig of alcohol kept him rooted in his seat.

Natalie suddenly elbowed him hard for no apparent reason. He glared at her, but she only responded by returning her intense gaze to the screen. Blearily, Haymitch followed her lead, although the TV seemed to swim in front of his eyes. The tributes onscreen were obviously not from 12, and he considered telling Natalie off when memories of her victory the year before his silenced the protest. He could certainly do without having his head smashed in, thank you very much.

The rest of the mentors, particularly those from 2 and 4 couldn't tear their eyes from the screen. The Careers had found ample evidence of tributes having stopped at the apple tree, and were debating where the rebel Careers had gone from there while polishing off the multitude of apples left unfinished.

Several mentors glanced at Haymitch, waiting for the boot to drop that one of his tributes was being threatened. Over the years they had learned he would feign indifference, but was fiercely protective if he really thought the tributes had a chance, and this Capitol favorite certainly did.

What they didn't know was that Haymitch was fully aware of Loki's precarious situation. Despite what he had told him at the interviews, he had no intentions of letting the brats from 2 and their pet from 4 kill him. But they wouldn't get close enough. Snow would never allow it. The danger came from getting too far away from his granddaughter. As long as he stayed close to Vic, Snow would go to any length to keep the group safe. But he threatened her, and as soon as Snow could, he would eliminate him. The only question was when that would be.

Haymitch's last orders from Coin before he surrendered to the Peacekeepers to play triple agent had been to not let the Capitol win. He may not be the ideal solider, but Haymitch could follow orders he agreed with. And that meant the president's granddaughter had to die.

-a

"Told ya we should've gone rock climbing at the training center," Vic huffed, pausing for moment to catch her breath on a fairly large and secure ledge. She glanced over at Loki with a grin. "See? Rocks _can_ be fun."

The glare she received in return told her that Loki was having significantly less fun than she was on the near vertical climb up this part of the mountain. He was as out of breath as her, but she didn't comment on that for fear that he wouldn't just nick her the next time he decided to throw one of his knives at her. Her weapons were little deterrent against his lightning fast strikes. If it came to a fight between them, Vic had no illusions as to who the winner would be.

She played the scenario out in her head as a distraction from the grueling climb. He'd wait until the Careers were out of the way, she'd be useful until then. Unless it was down to the final three, he'd wait for his brother to be distracted, perhaps getting firewood or hunting down a tribute. Then he'd make sure there was enough distance between them that she couldn't use her sword. She'd throw her one shuriken and miss, just trying to scare him. Her compassion and trust was the worst weakness to have in the Games. She would miss, but he wouldn't.

But after that she didn't know. Obviously she would be the first to fall out of their alliance. She was the outsider, and worse, related to the president. After they killed her, though, Vic was clueless. She supposed it shouldn't matter to her, as she wouldn't live to see it and it wouldn't happen anyways since they were getting out of the arena. But the curiosity was eating away at her. Not badly enough to ask, but she still wanted to know.

Thor would want to win the Games, but he wouldn't hurt his brother if his life depended on it. Which it did. But she didn't know what Loki would do. She'd love to believe there was still a chance to discredit the Games if 13 failed to show up, but even after all this time she still didn't know if he would refuse the wishes of the Capitol to protect Thor. And after what happened to the last two Gamemakers to defy Snow, she doubted the new one would dare to follow their example and help the tributes. Particularly after all she'd done.

Vic shook her head slightly. _Enough. It won't come to that,_ she told herself. She refocused her attention on climbing. Both her allies were getting further ahead of her, and she scrambled to catch up. She didn't have to imagine what sort of things were lurking just beneath her feet. _Or a few hundred, _Vic thought, glancing down nervously.

They had made good progress up the mountain, but that didn't make Vic feel any safer. She had asked to go to the mountains to get away from the traps and mutts in the forest, but she was sure the mountains were crawling with mutts as well. And it would be just as easy to rig up a natural disaster up here, like another blizzard or maybe a-

"Avalanche!" Thor called. Vic looked up, shocked to see how far she'd fallen behind in such a short time. She'd also taken a route slightly to left of the one the other two had taken. The cascade of falling rocks and snow was on a course that would just barely miss her.

Vic didn't think, she just moved. If she had thought, she probably would have moved away from the avalanche, but she didn't. She scuttled a few feet to her right and clung to the mountain with every ounce of strength she possessed.

It hit like a train, powerful, fast, and unstoppable. Despite her efforts, the impact instantly pushed her off, and she fell. Her head collided solidly with a rock midair and the world went black.

-a

_Shots echoed off the buildings somewhere behind her. Her lungs and legs burned as she pushed them to their fullest capacity, the heavy gun thumping painfully against her back. Despite knowing the streets as well as she knew her best friend's face, she soon found that she was lost. She ducked into a narrow doorway in an effort to avoid being hit by a stray bullet, but it was already occupied. _Click. _She turned to see that the previous user of this particular hiding spot had a loaded and cocked pistol not an inch from her face, their hand trembling as though caught in a snowstorm. The air became heavier. In fact, there was hardly any air at all..._

-a

Vic's eyes snapped open to see nothing but white. The lack of air wasn't from fear, but rather a physical lack of air. She reached in the direction she thought was up and frantically dug at the snow covering her face. For a few terrifying seconds she felt nothing but cold, until something rather sharp scraped the top of her head. It continued digging around her as she struggled to reach the surface. Turning her face to the exposed air above her, Vic closed her eyes and panted for breath for a moment. When her gasps returned to regular breathing, she flicked her eyes open to look for her rescuer.

What she found standing above her took away any breath she might have managed to retain. A grizzly bear at least seven feet high balanced on its hind legs and grunted, creating a cloud of steam in the cold air. It lowered back to all fours and continued digging Vic out of the snow. The sight of its massive claws mere inches from her face snapped Vic out of her initial shock, and she let off a scream that was sure to set off a second avalanche.

A blur of color swept across her vision. The bear recoiled sharply, batting at thin air with its massive paws. It gave a pained growl before lumbering out of her line of sight, a thin trail of red left in its wake.

She waited a moment to be sure it was gone before attempting to pulling herself out of the snow. It proved rather difficult, as the bear hadn't left her much room to maneuver. After several minutes of struggling against the cold and increasingly wet substance Vic managed to free herself.

A low chuckle startled her. She spun around to find Loki watching her, amusement twinkling in his emerald eyes. "Took ya long enough," he teased.

"I hate you."

"You're welcome."

"I seriously _do not_ need to rescued. I am perfectly capable of handling a silly little bear," Vic huffed indignantly.

"Yeah, you screamed like you had it all under control."

"I hate you. Where's Thor?"

Loki nodded towards a snow bank similar to the one Vic had been trapped in. "I made sure he could breath. He's out pretty hard."

Vic rubbed her head where the rock had hit her. It came away bloody and she cringed. "Yeah. Stupid rocks."

-a

Ashely grabbed the back of Alex's suit and roughly yanked him back, pinning him to a tree.

"Ashely, what-"

"Shh." She put a hand over his mouth, cutting him off. A quick glance to her left revealed Ivy similarly crouched behind a rock. Ivy was peeking out from her hiding place, intently watching the bear that had just run by them.

It went into a small space between some rocks that presumably opened up to a cave further in. Ivy stood up from her hiding spot and took a few steps in the direction the bear had come from. She pointed excitedly to something out of Ashley's line of sight.

Ashely slowly took her hand off Alex's mouth and came to stand by Ivy. They had the perfect angle to see a lone figure standing on the site of a recent avalanche. He appeared to be stifling a laugh. While they watched, another figure emerged from the snow.

Ashely elbowed Ivy. "District 12 and the president's kid. We just found the rebel Careers," she whispered.

"What the heck, Ash?" Alex asked angrily, far louder than Ashely was expecting.

"Shut up!" she hissed. The pair of rebel Careers hadn't seemed to take notice of Alex's outburst. "We were hiding from the bear, which I assume you were too busy with your inflated ego to notice."

"Very funny. Was there really a bear?"

Ivy answered, cutting off whatever snarky reply Ashely had planned. "Yeah, and that's how we're gonna get them. Let the bear do all the work for us."

"Not until we see the other one too. We need to hit all three at once," Ashely interjected. "District 12 and 1 are adoptive brothers. If we hit one without hitting the other, he's going freak out. All at once or we wait."

Alex nodded thoughtfully. "Agreed. We can collapse the back of the cave to force the bear out. I'll bet that if we go in one of the adjacent caves and pull some rocks down, the whole system will collapse."

"Great. You have fun getting crushed," Ashely said.

Ivy tugged on a long stringlike plant that was climbing a nearby tree. "Guys. Why not just figure out which rock to pull and tie this to it? We can pull it down without getting hurt."

"Good idea, Ivy. I knew we kept you around for a reason," Alex said, cutting the plant near the root and pulling it down.

"Excuse me?"

"Never mind. Come on, Ash, let's find a load bearing rock and get ready." Alex headed off towards the rocks with the bundle of ivy. Ashely followed, leaving Ivy outside to wait for the last of their prey to appear.

-a

Snow watched the Careers make their plan with a deeply furrowed scowl. "And exactly how did this happen?" The question was filled with enough malice to make the usually calm Head Gamemaker flinch. The other Gamemakers instinctively avoided them, giving a wide berth to the master controls.

"She was separated from the boys, and I thought it was the perfect time to eliminate them, but she stepped into the avalanche. I shut it down, but she had already fallen."

"And you're sure she was out of the way?"

"She deliberately moved into the line of fire."

"Ever so typical of her."

"I'm sorry?"

"Never mind. Kill the Careers."

"I can't without sending the bear after her again."

Snow bit the inside of his lip in frustration. _If only I could trust her to fight back... Would she really lose on purpose? I could call her bluff right now... If only she were bluffing._

"No. Just let this play out. The younger boy at least knows her safety is all that's kept them alive so far. Let's hope the older one catches on too." He turned the volume back up on the screen Panam was currently viewing, the techies' alliance.

-a

A fat, fluffy rabbit dangled about a foot above the forest floor. Xander loosened the knots around its feet and set the rabbit next to the others he'd caught with the cleverly hidden traps. Several feet away, Daniel tried to start a fire by spinning a twig against a larger piece of wood, but couldn't quite work up the speed required. Brigit eventually grew tired of watching this and took over for him. Soon a small fire was crackling and the smell of roast rabbit rose into the air.

"Nice work," Xander said, sitting conspicuously close to Brigit.

"Uh- huh." She barely seemed to hear him, her eyes taking on a faraway look like they so often did when she was thinking.

"So, when are you gonna tell us what's up?" Daniel asked, sitting across from the older pair.

Xander pulled his arm back to his side before Brigit could notice it inching around her shoulders. "Nothing. Nothing is up, what's up with you?"

"Well, Brigit's been really quiet all day..."

On hearing her name, Brigit snapped out of whatever daze she'd been in and looked up at Daniel. "Oh, um, I was just wondering why we haven't seen any mutts or tributes yet. Usually the wolves are crawling all over this place by now, and the Careers haven't been nearly as active as normal..."

"Do not question a good thing. There are two strong alliances this time, they're probably busy fighting each other. If all the Capitol's little playthings are as screwed up as the Cornucopia was, we may never see a mutt. I, for one, count that as a good thing," Xander explained before taking a large bite of rabbit.

-a

Thor finally came to a few hours before twilight. Vic had gone back to the apple tree, and returned with several apples skewered on her katana. Thor was pulling himself out of the snow when she arrived, and stopped to raise an eyebrow at her method of carrying the apples.

"Didn't you stab a wolf with that thing?"

"Yeah. So?" Vic pulled an apple off the katana and took a bite out of it. "Hungry?" She held the sword out to him.

Thor grunted and clambered out of the snow drift. "Why is it always apples? I need real food!"

Loki rolled his eyes. "So are the apples fake food?"

"You know what I mean! I need meat!"

Vic spat out the bite she had just taken. "Wolf's blood tastes horrible."

"Oh, really? I thought it would taste like strawberries."

"Shut up, I still hate you."

A distant rumbling interrupted the imminent argument. Thor picked up his hammer and held it up defensively. "What was that?"

-a

A rustle from a nearby bush sent chills down Daniel's spine. He slowly grabbed a handful of pebbles on the ground and threw them across the fire at Xander and Brigit. They cut off their conversation to glare at him, and he nodded towards the bush.

Their mood sobered instantly. Brigit drew her sword and Xander reached for the nearest thing that could pass for a weapon, a stick from their fire that in all honesty was little larger than a twig.

Brigit inched closer to the bush, completely on edge. Even in training Daniel had never seen either so focused, and another shiver ran though him. He picked up the next largest stick from their fire, a short piece of wood that would do very little in a fight. The flame flickered out almost instantly, but he held it out in front of himself regardless.

Brigit nodded at Xander, some unspoken plan being told through their quick eye contact. Xander stood to the side of the bush, ready to pounce on the mutt, while Brigit stood directly in front of it. She swung the sword back and forth a few times to build momentum, then sliced off the top half of the bush.

No wolf howled in pain, and no blood appeared on Brigit's sword. A brown rabbit hopped out from under the bush and reached a hind leg up to scratch its ears. The trio relaxed instantly, all letting out a breath they hadn't known they had held.

A sound from behind made Daniel jump. He whirled around to find yet another tan pelted bunny. Another hopped in t view just behind it. Turning in a circle, it was soon obvious that they were being surrounded by the small fluffy animals. The brown one between Brigit and Xander bared two large fangs. The other rabbits followed suit, revealing the vampiric nature of the pack.

After a second of shocked silence, Brigit lopped off the first rabbit's head. The other mutts charged inwards, malice glinting in their dark eyes.

"Run!"

-a

The massive grizzly burst out of the foliage as though it were rabid. The brightness of the snow seemed to startle it momentarily after the shade of the forest. It came to a sudden stop several yards from the trio, panting hard for breath.

Vic raised a foot to the hilt of her sword and slid the apples off before taking a defensive stance. She tried to avoid noticing that the red they left in sharp contrast to the snow looked eerily similar to blood. "Hey, Loki, just out of curiosity, which one of you is slower?"

"We're both faster than you." A knife sprung to his hand almost as if by magic. "Anyways, it's kind of in the way of an escape route, unless you want to try climbing again."

The bear's nose twitched. It swung its head around to glare at Loki, hate shining through its single black eye. The place where the second eye should have been was a mangled mess, the knife that had made it that way still stuck in the socket.

Its roar was all the anger in the world condensed into five seconds of sound. The ground shook under the force of it, and Vic feared the mountain would collapse on them once again.

With stunning speed, the grizzly charged, barreling past Thor running to meet it with a battle cry of his own. He was shocked for a moment at being ignored, but shock soon turned to anger and he ran after the bear.

Vic raised her katana to eye level and moved to position herself so the bear would run straight onto the blade. Just as the bear was about to slam into her, something knocked her legs out from underneath her and she found herself with an excellent view of the sky and the belly of the bear.

At such close range, Loki could hardly miss the bear's other eye while Vic stabbed upwards. Enraged, the bear swung a massive paw blindly, knocking Loki to the ground. Somwhere overhead, a cannon sounded.


	7. Betrayal

Vic's stomach knotted the same way it had in the Capitol nearly a year ago, fighting Peacekeepers and watching her friends fall to them one by one. It seemed to take a humiliatingly long amount of time, although it was probably only seconds in reality, for her training to kick in. _Rule three: if something proves to be a danger, eliminate it._

She twisted the katana in the bear's stomach, which only had the effect of making it angrier. It howled in pain and turned away from Loki to attack her. She easily moved out of its way, the blind bear swiping at the snow where she had been laying seconds before.

Before Vic could formulate another plan of attack, Thor launched himself at the bear, wildly smashing at its head with his hammer. The cries coming from his mouth were hardly human, and more ferocious than the roar of the bear.

Movement out of the corner of her eye drew Vic's attention away from the fight. _Maybe... No, that's impossible... But maybe! _Vic practically crawled to Loki to avoid drawing attention. He was lying face down in the snow, a pool of red slowly spreading from his left shoulder.

Vic turned him over as carefully as possible and slipped a hand up to his neck to check for a pulse. She would have screamed in surprise when a hand wrapped around her wrist if another had not covered her mouth. Green eyes flicked open and for the first time since the cannon Vic's lungs worked like they were supposed to.

She immediately rammed a fist into his stomach. "I had that one!" she hissed.

"Nice to see you too," he muttered back through clenched teeth.

Loki put an arm around her shoulders to sit up, still wheezing from her hit. He sized up the fight quickly. "If Thor keeps going at it head on like that, the bear's going to get lucky eventually."

"I'm not sure he cares anymore."

"I do! We have to help him. What's that and can we use it?" Loki pointed to a few wavy lines hanging in midair behind Thor.

Vic's jaw dropped in shock. "Yeah. We can absolutely use that." She threw her shruiken at the spot. It bounced away with lightning speed, completely missing the bear she was trying to hit with the rebound. Thor was edging closer to the edge of the arena, losing ground to the giant animal.

"Thor, swing to the left!" Thor responded to Loki's voice without question, turning and ramming his hammer into what appeared to be empty air. The resultant shockwave sent the hammer flying through the bear's skull and knocked Thor several feet away.

The wall of the arena lost its camouflage on impact. The gray skeleton of the arena rippled out from where it had been hit. One by one, the mountains dissolved, revealing the arena to be limited to the four mile in diameter forest ringed by a few piles of rocks like the one they had been climbing. As quickly as they disappeared, the mountains shimmered into existence, blending perfectly with the real rocks at the edge of the arena.

Thor didn't seem to notice any of this. He scrambled to his feet and ran to Loki with such speed it was as though he'd been launched by the electric wall too, and nearly crushed the younger boy with a hug. Loki squirmed, but didn't pull away as he might have under different circumstances.

"Thor, if my ribs aren't already broken, you're breaking them."

Thor relaxed the hug a bit but didn't let go. "I thought you were dead," he choked out.

Loki patted him on the back uncomfortably. "Just a scratch and really bad timing, that's all. It must have been some other tribute."

Thor finally let him go, but was visibly shaking. "I don't want to win. I've heard all my life about the glory and honor of winning the Games, but if this is what it costs then I just _can't_."

"Thor-"

"Hey, guys, not that this isn't sweet and all, but there is no chance that the rest of the tributes didn't see that. If the Careers don't already know where we are, they do now. We need to go." Vic was bouncing on the balls of her feet, itching to move on. "Since there apparently aren't any mountains, I say we head back down to the forest. At least we'll have some cover from the trees there."

Loki nodded, the motion jarring his shoulder. Despite his attempt to conceal it, Thor noticed the wince that followed. He wrapped an arm gently around his brother's shoulders. "I've got you. I always will," he quietly promised.

Loki almost returned with a sharp reply that he didn't need to be looked after, but the blood loss finally caught up to him and he collapsed.

* * *

"What the heck, Ivy? We could have had them!" Alex's words had no effect in hindering the girl's progress deeper into the forest.

"Yeah, they were right there, none of them had their weapons, and one was already half dead! What exactly was so urgent about getting outta there?"

Ivy turned around to glare at them as though it should have been obvious. "Okay, well for one, they just killed a bear. Two, if we go after them, they'll figure out we sicced the bear on them and _hello, they just killed a bear! _I like my head being on my shoulders, thank you very much."

"So, we're _running away_? Ivy, we are the toughest alliance in the arena. We can take them!" Alex returned her glare, hand on the hilt of his sword.

Ivy threw her hands in the air. "Alright, let's go back. That one kid was bleeding pretty hard, they can't have gone far."

"But they aren't distracted now! We had a chance and you blew it Ivy," Ashely joined the staring match. "We may as well just follow at a distance. It'll get dark, two of them will go to sleep. I'll shoot the one that stays up, and then we can move in."

"Great. Let's move." Alex turned to lead the way back to the site of the avalanche, the girls following in silence.

* * *

Xander knelt on the ground, hugging a bloody and tear streaked Brigit. "I'm so, so sorry, Brigit. It's my fault."

She buried her face in his chest. Between sobs, she managed to choke out enough words to form a sentence. "It was my fault too. I wasn't fast enough. I should have made sure he had a weapon, or, or _something_-"

Xander hugged her tighter, and Brigit burst into a fresh wave of tears. "You did everything you could. You fought like a warrior. It's not your fault we lost Daniel. Did they hurt you?"

Brigit shook her head. After a few more sobs, she managed to speak around the painful lump in her throat. "N-no. I don't think so." She sat up and studied him through puffy red eyes. "What about you?"

He shrugged. "I can handle it. But we need a plan. We can't just break down like this. It's still the Hunger Games, we absolutely can't afford to get sentimental."

Brigit pulled away like she'd been slapped. "How- Xander, we just- how are you so calm?"

Xander's cold brown eyes locked on Brigit. "Because I have to be. So do you. But trust me, I'm not calm. Not even close. We'll make them pay, I promise you."

"You mean the rabbits?" Brigit asked, confused.

"Them too." Xander pulled Brigit back to him, holding her until the sun dipped below the mountains and the stars shone in the darkness.

* * *

The Capitol anthem blared, finding the rebel Careers just settling into a large tree. Three faces flashed above their heads, first Daniel, then Andrew, then Greg. Vic stared at the place their faces had been for while before settling down in the uncomfortable nest of pine needles. A large teardrop rolled down her cheek and she hurriedly wiped it away.

For a while the trio sat in silence. The low hum of crickets was a soothing lullaby, but for once they were truly on guard. There would be very little rest tonight. Vic noticed but didn't mention how Thor had moved closer to Loki than he was the night before, and periodically glanced in his direction as if to reassure himself that he was still there.

Loki was paler than usual. Combined with his normal pale complexion and in contrast to his raven hair, he appeared solid white, almost ghostly. But the blood had stopped soon after he had collapsed, and when he woke he proved capable of walking, so they'd pressed into the forest until Thor had happened upon the quicksand.

It had taken a while, and quite a bit of creative work with the nearby ivy, but Loki and Vic managed to maneuver Thor out of the quicksand and into the branches of a tree above. Exhausted, the trio decided moving any further in an area with quicksand would be too difficult and dangerous in the dark.

The silence stretched on until it was almost tangible, a fourth companion, one with a slightly sinister air, to the point that Vic didn't know if the silence followed the darkness, or if it was the other way around. In their new hiding spot, the tree branches above blocked out the moon and the stars. Considering the relaxing effect the starlight had on Vic, she considered it a good thing they were gone. This was not a time for peace.

In a heartbeat, the silence fled. Somewhere below the sounds of a scuffle rose through the branches to the trio.

"Ash! Stop messing around," a male voice hissed through the dark.

"I'm not, I'm really stuck!" The second voice was just as quiet, but in the thick silence of the forest it rang out. Vic suddenly realized why the silence had felt almost menacing. Earlier, crickets had kept total quiet at bay, but the approaching humans had scared them off.

Beside her, Loki gripped a knife, and Thor reached for his hammer. Loki's hand shook holding the knife, despite his efforts to appear untaxed by the earlier ordeal.

_We're not going to win a fight like this, _Vic sighed to herself. She tapped the boys' shoulders to get their attention and shook her head. "Just let the arena do the work," she whispered. She reached for a branch of a nearby tree and pulled herself away from her original spot. "The floor is lava," she called back quietly.

Vic and Loki had little problem carrying out her idea, but they had to go slow because if Thor moved too quickly the branches would creak and give away their position. After the third or fourth time the chatter below stopped and their progress forward froze, a steady wind picked up that sent the entire forest moaning. It made it harder to cling to the tips of the trees, but they could move without fear of being noticed by sound.

Whenever possible, Vic threw a glare at the cameras she passed. "I don't need help," she muttered to a poorly concealed microphone. As if in response, the wind grew stronger and a light rain started, gradually growing in intensity. "You're the worst," she grumbled under her breath.

* * *

The microphone picked up Vic's quiet remarks. Snow stood by himself in front of the wall of glowing screens. He'd ordered all the Gamemakers out for the time being. For once, he had no reply to her words, no desire to lash out at a random tribute. He just felt tired. Across the arena, tributes were shifting slightly in their sleep in response to the sudden rain he had selected to match his mood.

Snow reached for the special measures section of the controls. One button here could transform the arena to a desert or an arctic wasteland, or perhaps release poison into the water sources in the arena. He could literally make the sky fall, or cause every mutt in the arena to go on a rampage. He could end the Games in the time it would take to tie a shoe. He could have her back by sunrise.

Snow let his hand fall to his side. A memory of Victory from several years ago came rushing back, robbing him of the capacity to do anything but wish for the chance to turn back the clock.

* * *

_A small girl, uncoordinated but full of boundless energy, rushed down the hall, nearly bowling him over in her haste. "Look granddaddy!" She held out a piece of paper covered with red crayon on both sides. "That tutor lady taught me hard adding today! I did a thing!" She looked so proud of herself that he just had to smile and take the paper._

_In her childish and altogether too large handwriting, Victory had written the same number over and over, 23. In one corner was a larger number. "I figured out one thousand, five hundred, and forty one people died in the arena. Granddaddy?"_

_"Yes, sweetheart?"_

_"If we have the Games this year, it will be one thousand, five hundred, and sixty four!" After reciting two large numbers she looked somewhat out of breath, but stared up at him with her bright blue eyes anyways. He could never resist those bright blue eyes._

_"You're getting so good at math, dear!"_

_"Granddaddy?"_

_"Yes, Victory?"_

_"Can we not have the Games this year?"_

_"You know it's a tradition, dear. Why don't you go draw a picture of the roses for me? You have the perfect color for it."_

_The girl's head drooped, her pigtails swishing with every movement of her head. "Okay, granddaddy." She scampered away, leaving him holding sixty eight red 23s. Why did she always have to write in red?_

* * *

"When did you stop being my baby?" Snow whispered to the screen. Vic continued on, at this point resigned to the steady rainfall. She shook some stray water out of her eyes, and for a moment she was back in pigtails, laughing as she ran through the sprinklers on the lawn. But it was only for a moment.

Then she moved to the next tree, almost pirouetting to make the jungle gym style movement work, and she was a little ballerina in a pink tutu, putting on her first performance on the massive palace stage. She had tripped then. She had torn her tutu and cried. He still had the costume in a closet somewhere, tear and all. But the girl onscreen didn't trip. She looked strong and confident and completely unfamiliar.

Snow moved away from the live feeds and sat in front of a computer. He scrolled through the recorded moments of the day until he found the one he was looking for. The moment after the cannon, when she had thought her ally was dead. The look of horror on her face was identical to the look she always wore when she watched the Games as a child. She looked young again, like the Victory he knew, not the warrior in the arena.

Pursing his lips and drumming his fingers, Snow went further back, to just after the wolf attacked and the same ally had turned on her. The look in her eyes was that of terror, just like when lightning crashed outside the palace and she ran to his room to slip under the covers in fear. His Victory was still in there, somewhere.

Although Snow wanted the one tribute who had dared to threaten his granddaughter dead more than anyone else in the arena, he couldn't help but be grateful for these glimpses past her mask. She was as scared as anyone else. Of course she couldn't show it, but at least he knew she wasn't completely different from the girl he loved more than Panam.

Snow changed the screen back to his first search, during the bear attack. He looked closer, studied her face, her every movement. It wasn't just horror he found, it was heartbreak. She genuinely believed she would be able to escape with them. Looking into the bright blue eyes he knew so well, Snow wasn't sure if he'd have the heart to stop her.

* * *

Sunrise came and went without disaster. The rebel Careers had finally stopped just before the edge of the burnt forest to sleep. The destruction from the Cornucopia fire had spread about a mile in diameter before sizzling out. The rain made the ashes on the ground run together in a thick muck, and the barren trees stood like the ruins of an ancient and long forgotten city.

Curled up against the firm trunk of an only slightly charred tree, Vic was oblivious to the surrounding forest. A small black bird perched above her head sang a few notes and flew off, not deigning to wake the girl.

As it turned out, the bird was saved by its disinterest. A thin green tendril snaked its way up the tree, wrapping itself several times around Vic's ankle. Suddenly it pulled, sending her crashing through the branches of the trees toward the forest floor below.

Flailing, Vic blinked herself awake. She was dangling upside down, her fingers just brushing the mossy ground below. Another green plant twisted itself around her wrists. She tried to tug away from it, but it proved surprisingly strong for such a small plant.

"Don't bother fighting it, it'll just get worse."

Vic twisted, trying to see behind her. She currently was stuck looking at the gnarled roots of a tree. Every time she pulled at the restraints, they tightened, and additional vines wrapped around her until simply breathing against the crushing weight was a struggle.

"Would you two _idiots_ stop moving, you're just making it madder."

Vic finally succeeded in spinning around. Thor was practically in a green cocoon, and still thrashing wildly. Loki, on the other hand, was leaning casually against a tree, and didn't appear to have been bothered by the plant at all.

"I will stop moving when this beast is vanquished!" Thor screamed.

"A little help would be nice?" Vic threw her most intimidating glare at Loki, although the hair falling in her face may have lessened its effect.

"I already told you, just stop moving and it'll let go."

Vic let herself go limp. She was quickly becoming too exhausted to continue the struggle regardless. One by one, the vines around her retreated, eventually dropping her on her face. She stood and tried to wipe the dirt off, but that had little effect other than to make her hand dirty as well.

"How did you know that would work?"

Loki shrugged. "Thor was fighting it and it got worse, so I just did the opposite. Fairly simple, really."

"Right. I don't suppose there's any chance he'll stop before it strangles him?"

"Not really. We could cut him down, but we'd have to be ready to run, the plant would likely retaliate."

Vic heaved a long sigh. "Has this seriously gotten to the point where that sentence doesn't make me think you're insane?"

"Perhaps we're in the same asylum and imagining all this."

"I wish." Vic drew her katana and held it out towards the writhing green mess. "Okay, so we run on three. One, two, _three_!"

She swung the sword and succeeded in cutting about a third of the vines. The severed ends whirled around in her direction and made a sound that vaguely resembled a hiss. Vic instinctively stepped back, almost tripping over a knot of vines that were collecting around her legs.

The vines released Thor and slithered towards Vic with blinding speed. She slashed at the vines, which seemed to spring back double every time they were cut. Loki grabbed Thor and roughly pulled him away from the plant, its full attention thoroughly occupied by Vic at the moment.

Once Thor and Loki were away from the plant, Vic dashed towards them, ignoring the vines that snapped at her feet. The trio ran from the tidal wave of vines until they snapped taunt 30 feet from where the edge of the field had once been.

The vines retreated back to the greener areas of the forest, leaving the trio alone next to the ruined landscape. A stray gust of wind sent chills through them, and the cannon echoing through the arena was the only thing loud enough to break the eerie stillness.

* * *

Further into the forest, the cannon startled three of the littles' alliance into wakefulness. Linda shot up like a rocket, her heart pounding in her chest. For some reason, this cannon sounded different.

"Sound off," she called.

"Becca!"

"Bella!" The return calls came from nearby, but in the disorientation between sleep and consciousness, Linda couldn't see her wards.

"Phillip! Penelope! Are you guys here?" Panic crept into her voice. _This isn't happening. This isn't happening. There is no possible way that this is happening._ "Guys, this is not funny!"

A red blur out of the corner of her eye was the only warning she had. Linda put her hands up to block the blow, just in time to catch the sharp metal on her palm. Warm blood raced down her arm, the pain snapping her fully awake.

She moved away from the trunk towards the more fragile branches on the edge of the tree. They couldn't hold both her and her attacker's weight and they fell, with nothing but the bed of pine needles on the ground to break the fall. The second cannon in as many minutes sounded from somewhere above.

* * *

Bella slowly guided Becca down from the tree, careful to avoid bumping the girl's injured leg. "Almost there, okay, hon? Just three more branches, then I'll drop down and catch you, okay?" She spoke quietly, not entirely sure if the rouge member of their alliance had been killed by the fall, or if they were being stalked like the last antelopes on the savanna.

Becca nodded in reply, her face pale yet determined. For all the terror she must have been feeling, she was careful not to show it.

Bella swung herself down the the forest floor, twigs crackling under her weight. She froze, and held a hand up to stop Becca from jumping after her. Three figures lay on the ground, none of which were moving. But there only two cannons.

Penelope was obviously dead, the front of her shirt soaked in blood. Bella looked away with a shiver, not keen to know any more. Linda and Phillip were close together, the metal shard held between their hands. Drawing closer, Bella could see that Linda's hand was cut, like she had been attacked. It would make sense, Phillip was the one they'd left awake to watch for danger, and therefore the one that would've had the alliance's shared weapon. _But why did he snap like that?_ Bella wondered.

Phillip groaned and raised a hand to his head, dropping the piece of metal as he did. Bella darted forward and snatched it before he could realize his mistake. His eyes widened in shock just before Bella stabbed him. She bit back vomit at the squelching sound the knife made. The third cannon that day seemed to never end, just bouncing back around in her mind.

Bella stood on wobbly legs and made her back to where she had left Becca. "Come on down, it's safe now."

Becca shook her head, eyes wide with horror, and Bella realized she'd seen what had happened. "Becca, Linda had cuts on her hands. That means Phillip must have been the one who went rouge. I was just protecting us. Come on down."

Becca gave one last look at Bella's blood covered hands before closing her eyes and jumping down. Bella caught her, just as she'd said she would. The younger girl pulled away quickly, but not before Bella noticed how badly she was shaking.

"I won't hurt you. We don't have anyone else now, so we have to stick together. I won't hurt you, I promise."


End file.
